Unruly objects: NFTs, blockchain technologies and bio-conservation
· publication
A paper co-authored by Alex May on NFTs, provenance, and the conservation of bioart was published in Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research.
The paper Unruly objects: NFTs, blockchain technologies and bio-conservation was published in Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, Volume 19, Number 3. Co-authored by Anna Dumitriu, Alex May, Athanasios Velios, Zoi Sakki, Veroniki Korakidou, Helia Marcal, and George Panagiaris, the article examines how blockchain technologies and NFTs intersect with the conservation of bioart.
Using Unruly Objects and Biological Conservation as a case study, the paper explores provenance, artist documentation, and the long-term care of artworks that combine biological material, physical objects, and digital records. Rather than treating blockchain as a simple technical solution, it asks what new preservation problems and conceptual tensions emerge when conservation records, artist intent, and living or unstable materials are bound together.
That line of enquiry connects closely to May’s wider practice, where technology is approached as part of the meaning of a work rather than as neutral infrastructure. Questions of storage, continuity, fragility, and what can be kept intact over time run through much of the work, and here they are addressed through conservation theory, distributed records, and the unstable life of biological and digital matter.
Read the full paper via the DOI record.