28/06/2021 Bids soar to $2.8 million for World Wide Web code NFT

LONDON, June 28 (Reuters) - Bids for a non-fungible token of the original source code for the World Wide Web written by inventor Tim Berners-Lee have soared to $2.8 million from an opening price of $1,000 with two days to go until the Sotheby's auction ends.

Berners-Lee, a London-born computer scientist, invented the World Wide Web in 1989, revolutionising the sharing and creation of information in what is seen as one of the most significant inventions since the printing press appeared in Europe in 15th Century Germany.

The digitally signed Ethereum blockchain non-fungible token (NFT), a digital asset which records ownership, includes the original source code, an animated visualization, a letter written by Berners-Lee and a digital poster of the full code from the original files. read more

The auction ends at 1801 GMT on Wednesday.

NFTs have exploded in popularity in recent months.

The most expensive NFT known sale to date was in March 2021, when a digital collage by the American artist Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, sold for $69.3 million at Christie’s. read more

It was the first ever sale by a major auction house of a piece of art that does not exist in physical form.

Since then, no NFT sale is known to have come close to this amount. In June, a single “CryptoPunk” NFT – a pixelated image of a cartoon face – fetched $11.8 million at Sotheby’s. read more

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Elizabeth Howcroft; Editing by Angus MacSwan
Arts

https://www.reuters.com/technology/bids-soar-28-million-world-wide-web-code-nft-2021-06-28/

Interesting NFTs
Punk #97
Inscription #623
Alex in Wonderland
A figure, Alex, stands mostly naked in the midst of a physical and psychological maelstrom. He is clad only in nostalgic 80’s era socks, on a tenuous island between active waters and a variety of shark denizens. Sharks on the right side of the image are all beached, including a shark with a quartz crystal snout, an orange shark wrapped in a life buoy, and a shark further in the distance wearing an 80’s style shirt with the number “88”. On the left side is the largest shark, wearing bright glossy red lipstick and brandishing prominent teeth with braces. She is cordoned off from the figure by a roped float divider, and within her thought bubble is a warning symbol. Behind the figure, hovering in the air, are Grey aliens emerging from the distance, out of a series of elliptical UFO shaped interdimensional membranes. The Greys take on the visual form of spermazoa ostensibly impregnating the interdimensional thresholds. As is typical, these Greys inhabit a zone just behind the unconscious topology of Alex’s dissociative mind. Though Alex’s bottom half is representative, his top half mutates into a psychological cornucopia. In a manner akin to “Auto-Erotic Sphinx”, a predecessor work, the figure has self suctioned—an act of sensual infatuation, enjoyment, and exploration. Upward exists the figure’s primary conscious eye, adorned with a revolutionary beret emblazoned with a Bitcoin badge. The figure’s summit features the nose of a fighter jet facing off against video game Bullet Bills, one of whom is marked by a communist North Korean star. A cropped section of a UFO observes the contest. Alex’s mind branches both left and right. To the left is more singular embodied consciousness, manifesting two eyes and a Ganesh trunk grasping crayons. The right branch dissociates upward diagonally, emerging into an array of eyes, faces, teeth, tail, a unicorn horn, and much more—all of which participate in expressing his unconscious being; a democracy of psychic factions representing thought impressions and associations. All illumination and darkness– fernal, infernal, high consciousness and corporeal underbelly–reside in this realm. In the distance are relatively languid, light clouds, and against the firmament hovers a colossal distant eye peering over the scene and far beyond. This painting possesses underlying genetic traits with previous works such as “Auto-Erotic Sphinx with Toys”, “Dionysus”, and “Fuku-Shiva”. The work serves also as a nod to an earlier period of art inspiration during late teens and early twenties— born out of the nakedness, vulnerability, curiosity, and wonder inherent to coming of age and all subsequent psychedelic revelation.
PASSION FOR LIFE - 7/19 Limited Edition
PASSION FOR LIFE - 7/19 Limited Edition - Please enable the sound - This NFT was inspired by some of the attributes of a woman. She is so beautiful, elegant, and delicate, but at the same time powerful and full of passion. She merges with the universe and creates life in many ways, represented in this artwork by the dispersion of her body. I first sculpted this piece by hand, then digitalized it and gave it life and movement. Limited Edition 7/19 IG @ArtistLeonardo
The dirty cape
Personal project
Fuku-Shiva
The term “Fuku” refers to fortune or good luck. “Shiva” refers to the Hindu deity who represents strongly polar qualities, both severe and delicate. On a beach inspired by adventures on Phi Phi island in Thailand, three youths cavort. Two are representational figures and the third is psychologically rendered. A dynamic relationship ensues between the triad; a reciprocity of active and passive states. The boy on the right engages in maneuvers of evasion, defense, and is dressed in a speedo which reiterates the colors and symbolism of the caution tape on the left and upper right frame of the composition. In concurrent reaction the psychedelic figure shoots out a rocket powered paper airplane. The nude boy seated in the froth and sand approaches in passive repose, and is met with active attention but equal physical reserve by the psychedelic being. Perhaps the most naked figure is also the least representational. Looming large, dynamic, and active, it engages its companions playfully. Various symbols interject into the otherwise naturalistic scene, most notably a beach ball and two contaminated barrels nested in the sand. The upright barrel reads “FukuShima” in Kanji. The barrel laying down reads “Dharma”. To the left the scene is bounded by caution tape, reiterating the danger of the nuclear waste while also hosting alien archetypes, whose presence, as is the nature of these entities, runs up and just behind the consciousness of the psychedelic figure’s eggshell-like skull.