NFT Classes for Parsons
It is always strange speaking in an educational environment about subjects that matter, particularly when there very expensive private institutions provide students with the space to stay many layers of distant abstraction away from live experience with history in the making and rather safe debating textbook knowledge and critical theories.
The tension in these kinds of talks is whether students will be either eager, humble and hungry, as has been the case in some situations I’ve had the opportunity to teach in, will be distracted and aloof because they have no skin in the game, or, will actively dismiss any evidence that contradicts their bubble reality.
Navigating that balance is part of what makes bringing a deeper understanding of web3, NFTs, CC0 and the critical value of self sovereign networks into classrooms worthwhile.
I recently was invited to do this very thing at Parsons School of Design — one of the top fashion and design schools in the world.
Filled with a genuine passion for how to move forward as an industry and in their own lives as creators of fashion in ways that are truly sustainable, these students all showed a level of seriousness towards making their own way and ensuring that creators are actually valued in a historically rapacious, corporate and centralised controlled dominated industry.
Unfortunately, some of them don’t yet get the severity of one of those last words. Centralisation in fashion, economics or societal control is still too stylish an accessory for those thinking that a little red book holds the ultimate truth.
Whilst there was spirited questioning on some of the more basic points most commonly repeated for anyone in web3 or NFTs around where the value actually comes from, whether BTC or USD is used to a greater extent in scams, ponzis, or evading sanctions (Hint, it’s no contest, USD by massive orders of magnitude), or right click save, you know the rest, I’m confident that these students are curious, open minded, and talented enough to find their way out of these common logical traps as they experience more of this fast changing world directly overtime.
All in all, it’s very exciting to see Parsons start to embrace and explore NFTs and new digital mediums for design.
