In 2021, everyone was wondering what is an NFT? A concept of digital artwork that seemed difficult to understand by many due to its intangibility and ambiguity. And yet, it managed to mobilize exorbitant amounts of money with million-dollar acquisitions. However, it turned out to be a success that was as sudden as it was fleeting, in fact, a report published last year revealed what had already been predicted: 95% of NFTs have lost their economic value. And so ended this phenomenon of works of computer art whose origins go back decades and which, to understand it, requires the obligatory mention of the artist Vera Molnar.
Who died at the beginning of December 2023, about to turn one centenary, the Hungarian artist Vera Molnar received an obituary in The New York Times, due to her contribution to the history of computational works of art. By learning to use what were the first computer languages and through algorithms, Molnar began to develop the predecessors of NFTs. She back in the sixties of the last century.
The sixties were marked by great computers and everything new they had to offer. And among its many applications, visionary artists like Vera Molnar, not free from the rejection of much of their own industry, focused on the creation of digital art. One of the first steps to achieve this was to master the first computer languages, such as Basic and Fortran, mainly used by scientists. Its function was to be able to develop algorithms in the most basic and simple way possible by the standards of the moment.
Another key was the use of punched cards, that is, sheets that contained information through perforations made based on binary code. Through them it was possible to enter information and instructions into the computers. The process to create a work of computational art could take days. The challenge was to achieve a balance between the order of the computer and the disorder of art itself, all using algorithms.
In this way, the foundations of a new artistic expression were laid, which was directly linked to the latest technologies and the advances that were being produced in the computational field. However, for decades it was a difficult path for its artists, as the case of Vera Molnar clearly shows. Whose reputation and influence was greatly enhanced by the popularization of NFTs, a phenomenon that would not arrive until more than fifty years after the first explorations in this field occurred.