What Is Phygital Art and How Can It Impact the NFT Market ?

Changes in the art market in the last few years included a sudden burst of interest (and inflation of prices) in NFTs and, as with every sudden hit, the collapse of the same interest and loss of profit for many NFT-oriented companies and collectors. This includes the market leaders such as OpenSea, which had to lay off 20% of its staff in July. 

The volatility of the NFT market and recent market research showing that collectors are reluctant to switch to digital art completely, and still prefer to buy pieces that have material form, pushed artists to recalibrate their approach and bridge the gap between the physical and digital art forms. The new hybridized physical-digital art format is called phygital art. 

Phygital Art Explained

Phygital is slowly becoming a new buzzword in the (digital) art world in 2022. A combination of terms digital and physical, phygital means physical and digital combined to create unique interactive experiences for the viewers. 

However, the term itself provokes groans in crypto circles. Artnet columnist Kenny Schachter notes that the word phygital "sounds like a bad case of indigestion," while others consider it the future of art that, as collector Ryan Zurrer claims, "will flip the entire crypto market." 

Until the devices for the display of digital art improve, says Schachter, he will continue to accumulate hybrid NFTs or digital works that also have a physical component. A similar sentiment is behind the recent surge in phygital art, with artists developing aspects of their digital creations in physical forms for collectors who are still uncertain about digital media. 

Even the biggest names in contemporary art failed to persuade collectors that physical art doesn't matter that much today. One of the examples is artist Damien Hirst's Currency, a digital work of 10,000 NFTs and paintings that were offered to collectors, who had to choose if they preferred to keep the physical or the digital work. Unsurprisingly, the majority decided to keep the paintings. 

These and similar events justify the necessity to have art that bridges this divide and makes collectors more prone to invest in digital works without artists abandoning their digital formats altogether. Phygital art is a response to this dilemma, with technology allowing each artwork to combine both digital and physical experiences, satisfying a centuries-old urge to collect physical objects but also responding to current trends.  

The Value of Phygital Art

With the new phygital tendency in art evolving, one may wonder what new value or experience is this type of art creating and how the interaction between NFTs and viewers may unfold in the future.

Shumon Basar, a co-founder of Zien, sees in phygital art (a term he detests) an opportunity for art to go beyond the organizational dynamics of art and capital flow. As he explains, "sometimes a jpeg is not enough" when it comes to "emotionally and intellectually moving encounters" between the viewers and art. 

With components using both digital and physical spaces, phygital art creates additional value for itself. It can transcend digital/material borders and provides a greater flexibility to collectors regarding where and how they can use their art. It is also an area of innovation that can drive technological advances forward, exploring the possibilities of digital art crossing into the real world. 

How this added value, in comparison to traditional mediums, is realized, is best demonstrated with the recent Dissrup collaboration between Vini Naso, a 3D designer, and  Love Hultén, an analogue hardware creator. Hultén designed the first NFT Visualizer to display Naso's digital work, I Miss You. Besides exhibiting art, the visualizer allows users to manipulate the artwork, to skip and freeze frames of the video as it unfolds in real time. 

The visualizer is not just a beautiful casing but also fosters new, intimate dynamics between the artwork's owner and the art itself. The method of presenting art thus outgrows its static function and is instead turned into a point of entry for collectors to engage more profoundly with the work they own.

Instead of just being a combination of digital and material worlds, phygital art also evolves artistic innovation, offering a chance for creatives to expand their works beyond conventions and use the methods of delivery as another point to exercise their creativity and imagination, adding value to their work in innovative ways and bringing viewers and collectors closer to their creations. 

Phygital Art and NFTs

While phygital as a concept is not new — it was invented by the Australian agency Momentum, which claimed the copyright for the term in 2013 — its application in art follows the development of the crypto market and NFTs. 

The major reason for its rapid expansion is the boom of smartphones which allowed customers to access digital assets immediately. Phygital art adapts to customer preferences and, using the technological advances of AI, AR, VR, and similar, creates the best possible consumer experience.   

Although a relatively new category when it comes to art, we can already discern several categories of phygital art. The most obvious one is a combination of an NFT and its physical corollary. Among examples is the mentioned Hirst's piece of 10,000 unique dot paintings and NFTs and the recent collaboration between Yuga Labs and Tiffany & Co., resulting in 250 custom-made pendants made available to CryptoPunk holders that quickly sold out for $50,000 each. 

While these works are clear examples of digital, generative art crossing over into material, a more direct integration of physical and digital art has also been developed recently. Perhaps the most expensive example is Beeple's Human One consisting of a constantly updating 4-screen video (or a kinetic video sculpture) showing an astronaut striding through wastes of a familiar world displayed in an aluminium and mahogany wood frame. A more subtle work, regarding its overall aesthetic quality, is Holoverse's La Bella Principessa, Leonardo da Vinci's work presented as a half-billion-pixel 3D hologram inside a crystal glass case. 

Other examples of phygital art include Peyote Ugly, again a collaborative project of Violet Jones, Henrik Uldalen, Santiago Pani, and Daniel Martin, who developed digitized and animated versions of their paintings, Frank Stella's phygital sculpture project that will allow owners of his NFTs to 3D print the sculpture, and Jeff Koons outlet into the NFT world with the similar project as Stella's, combining the NFT technology with a series of sculptures.

Besides art, phygital objects have been taking over the world of design and fashion as well, with pioneers including  Andrés Reisinger and Dolce & Gabbana. 

Phygital art relies heavily on innovation and the evolvement of the most cutting-edge technologies, and it will hopefully help revive and expand the stagnant NFT market.

Featured image: CryptoPunks, 2022, via cryptopunks.app