NFTs have long since become more than digital collectibles—they are a symptom of our time. „On NFTs” asks what happens when art, technology, and the market begin to speak the same language—and what remains of the idea of the original.
Between Vision and File
Few books have captured the dialogue between art and technology as precisely—and as openly—as this one. „On NFTs” is not a closed narrative but a polyphonic archive in which essays, interviews, and portraits intertwine theory, market, and aesthetics. The book does not treat NFT art as a style, but as a symptom of an era in which digitization renegotiates authorship, ownership, and value. The liberation from material limits ultimately culminated in an algorithmic order—and thus in new, subtler forms of dependency.
one of the pioneers of blockchain-based art.
© Taschen Verlag
The Grammar of Progress
Alice’s compendium shows how deeply faith in technological salvation has shaped the art discourse of the 21st century—and how alive it remains today. Terms like decentralization, transparency, and creativity appear as the moral vocabulary of a generation that equated progress with freedom. The contributions—from Beeple to Refik Anadol—reveal, however, that every innovation comes at a cost. With new autonomy comes new dependence on platforms and markets. NFTs move within this tension: they believe in the potential of the digital without ignoring its risks—critical, yet curious.
that blur the line between code and imagination.
© Taschen Verlag
Art, Code, and Control
„On NFTs” speaks more through its visual structure than through its texts. The book arranges screenshots, interfaces, and artworks into an aesthetic archive of the digital present. Between hyper-gloss and technical sobriety emerges an image of art in the age of data: cool, controlled, yet marked by obsessive precision. The design follows the logic of code—modular, repeatable, almost algorithmic—and makes clear how profoundly vision itself has become digitized. „On NFTs” thus becomes less a collection about art than a statement on perception under technological conditions.
color-based compositions that explore movement and perception in digital art.
© Taschen Verlag
Between Euphoria and Memory
TASCHEN first released „On NFTs” as a limited collector’s edition; now the standard edition follows for a wider audience. This shift opens a second reading: NFTs are not a closed hype but part of an ongoing evolution—quieter, more reflective, yet still driven by curiosity. NFT art has moved beyond speculation to become a field of inquiry where questions of authorship, ownership, and visibility are posed anew. „On NFTs” does not celebrate—it observes. And in that restraint lies its contemporaneity: calm, precise, and unexpectedly relevant.
Reading Tip
Robert Alice (ed.), On NFTs. TASCHEN, 2025, 656 pages, €40.
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