Project
PLAZA Exhibitions
Exploring Creator Economies
2021
Exploring Creator Economies
2021
Insight (Abstract)
The promise of the NFT era was a narrative built on how blockchain would usher in a mechanism for true digital ownership, the democratization of the collector market, and enforcable provenance. Record breaking sales, speculation and cultural hype fueled a fever pitch race to deliver on the promise. At the same time, web 2.0 platforms had built a system that devalued creative labor by marketing it as free. As a platform for creators that already boasted over a billion original photos published by creators all over the world, data and qualitative research had already indicated an appetite for VSCO to bring to table options for creators to monetize their work in meaningful ways.
Provocation
Could an ethical approach to NFTs provide economic opportunity to VSCO’s largely photographic community? Can it redefine a value system that prioritizes creativity while creating market-value for creators and audiences?
Source Material
The Gallery Ecosystem
Today's gallery model operates at the intersection of three powerful forces, each vying for primacy in determining artistic value and meaning.
![Obrist, Hans Ulrich (ed.). A Brief History of Curating (Documents, 3) JRP Ringer. October 2008]()
Curators have evolved from behind-the-scenes facilitators to cultural arbiters whose conceptual frameworks and exhibitions actively shape artistic narratives. As "creators" in Bruce Altshuler's formulation, their contribution to work stand on shared ground with the artworks they present. This emergence of the curator has profoundly influenced gallery economics and structure - from curatorial concepts as exhibition driver (versus individual artists) to influential celebrity curators, to artists themselves becoming curators in their own right. Meanwhile, a globalized collector market drives economic realities through hierarchical buying patterns. High-net-worth collectors and institutions validate artists through acquisition, while speculative collection drives market volatility. This ecosystem increasingly determines artist visibility.
On the other hnad, artists now navigate a complex terrain by developing strategic positions within and against these structures. Some embrace gallery representation and institutional validation, while others create alternative spaces and distribution models that challenge traditional gatekeeping mechanisms.
This creates a dynamic where artistic meaning becomes contested territory—simultaneously determined by curatorial framing, market validation, and artistic intention. The contemporary gallery thrives in this productive contradiction, functioning as both cultural laboratory and commercial enterprise.
Artists, Curators and Collectors on VSCO
A core VSCO feature that existed since its inception was a human curation team that, in its early days, looked at every single image published on the platform. Over the years, the practice grew both in scale and also in its philosophical approach. Internal tooling was developed to support the practice, and a curatorial point-of-view was adopted by deep ongoing study of contemporary curatorial texts. In many ways, curation was one of the “secret sauces” of the VSCO community: real human curation, informed by instituional curatorial practice and art critique, augmented by technology. As the observational aspects of the curation team grew, so too were pilot initiatives to engage with the community directly - from formal programs like like the mentorship and grant programs like VSCO Voices and Artist Initiative, to periodic invitations to the community to participate in photographic challenges - a precursor to more formal digital exhibitions.
Today's gallery model operates at the intersection of three powerful forces, each vying for primacy in determining artistic value and meaning.
On the other hnad, artists now navigate a complex terrain by developing strategic positions within and against these structures. Some embrace gallery representation and institutional validation, while others create alternative spaces and distribution models that challenge traditional gatekeeping mechanisms.
This creates a dynamic where artistic meaning becomes contested territory—simultaneously determined by curatorial framing, market validation, and artistic intention. The contemporary gallery thrives in this productive contradiction, functioning as both cultural laboratory and commercial enterprise.
Artists, Curators and Collectors on VSCO
A core VSCO feature that existed since its inception was a human curation team that, in its early days, looked at every single image published on the platform. Over the years, the practice grew both in scale and also in its philosophical approach. Internal tooling was developed to support the practice, and a curatorial point-of-view was adopted by deep ongoing study of contemporary curatorial texts. In many ways, curation was one of the “secret sauces” of the VSCO community: real human curation, informed by instituional curatorial practice and art critique, augmented by technology. As the observational aspects of the curation team grew, so too were pilot initiatives to engage with the community directly - from formal programs like like the mentorship and grant programs like VSCO Voices and Artist Initiative, to periodic invitations to the community to participate in photographic challenges - a precursor to more formal digital exhibitions.
Concept
Exhibitions by VSCO
Leaning on learnings from VSCO’s curatorial practice, initiatives like VSCO Voices and Artist Initiative, along with source material from contemporary art practices, Exhibitions by VSCO was launched focusing on the co-creative relationship between Artist and Curator through time-limited shows. New creative work is now catalyzed through dialogue between curatorial vision and the artist community, and it is incentivized by introducing for the first time on the VSCO platform a means for monetization. Curators are both co-creator and gallerist, and artist is co-creator and seller.The audience, so far as merely spectator, now becomes a collector, forming a trio of beneficiaries.
For each exhibition, curators now participate in the sale of each work (minted as an NFT), taking a pre-negotiated, per-exhibition percetage, built directly into the blockchain contract.
On climate...
An ongoing critique of NFTs and blockchain overall is its outsized impact on the climate. The minting and transfer of tokens, collectively called a “gas” fee is notoriously energy hungry due to the required computation. This is particular true of proof-of-work networks like Ethereum and Bitcoin. However, at the time, there were new crop of technologies that were emerging that followed a proof-of-stake method instead, which required a fraction of the computation requirement. One particular token, Algorand, stood out as both a proof-of-stake open source model, but operated a charitable foundation concurrently. Of the available partners, Algorand felt like a strong fit for the VSCO brand.
Leaning on learnings from VSCO’s curatorial practice, initiatives like VSCO Voices and Artist Initiative, along with source material from contemporary art practices, Exhibitions by VSCO was launched focusing on the co-creative relationship between Artist and Curator through time-limited shows. New creative work is now catalyzed through dialogue between curatorial vision and the artist community, and it is incentivized by introducing for the first time on the VSCO platform a means for monetization. Curators are both co-creator and gallerist, and artist is co-creator and seller.The audience, so far as merely spectator, now becomes a collector, forming a trio of beneficiaries.
For each exhibition, curators now participate in the sale of each work (minted as an NFT), taking a pre-negotiated, per-exhibition percetage, built directly into the blockchain contract.
On climate...
An ongoing critique of NFTs and blockchain overall is its outsized impact on the climate. The minting and transfer of tokens, collectively called a “gas” fee is notoriously energy hungry due to the required computation. This is particular true of proof-of-work networks like Ethereum and Bitcoin. However, at the time, there were new crop of technologies that were emerging that followed a proof-of-stake method instead, which required a fraction of the computation requirement. One particular token, Algorand, stood out as both a proof-of-stake open source model, but operated a charitable foundation concurrently. Of the available partners, Algorand felt like a strong fit for the VSCO brand.
Design
“Windows”
In the post WWII contemporary art space, the white cube became the standard formal architecture for the display and sale of art. The intention of course was to neutralize the site from the art, to varying degress of success, and not without its own critique. Having said that, how does a physical exhibition transition into the digital space? What gets carried over and what gets left behind?
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The particular direction chosen for the initial launch of VSCO Exhibition was based on the idea of a window, and its role in the history of gallery spaces and the broader history of architecture as a space that connects the interior of a building and its surrounding landscape - a bridge between the private and the public:
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The Platform
Go-to-Market
In the post WWII contemporary art space, the white cube became the standard formal architecture for the display and sale of art. The intention of course was to neutralize the site from the art, to varying degress of success, and not without its own critique. Having said that, how does a physical exhibition transition into the digital space? What gets carried over and what gets left behind?
The particular direction chosen for the initial launch of VSCO Exhibition was based on the idea of a window, and its role in the history of gallery spaces and the broader history of architecture as a space that connects the interior of a building and its surrounding landscape - a bridge between the private and the public:
The Platform
Go-to-Market
Learnings
The Exhibitions platform stayed live through Q1 of 2022. A second “show” was not renewed. Here are some learnings —
- The barrier of entry to crypto is exceptionally high for the average person from a user experience perspective. For non blockchain nativists, the process of creating and funding a crypto wallet, much less learning what it is and why they need it was a non-starter. Over 97% of visitors who were actually interested in collecting an item dropped off when faced with the wallet requirement.
- Choosing an alt-coin, albeit with good intention re: climate considerations, was a poor choice in a nascent community. A more known and available token like Ethereum or Bitcoin might have yielded a higher conversion.
- Digital ownership outside an insular community that had a rapidly deteriorating cultural reputation was not generally desirable. The real promise of blockchain technology was unfortunately being devalued by rampant speculation and capitalist trolling left the technology feeling more ponzi scheme and less groundbreaking innovation for good.