The Work of Art in the Age of Non-Fungible Ownership: Benjamin, Trump, & the NFT

In the age of the Instagram infographic, the Che Guevara tote bag, and Hello Kitty saying “ACAB”, it is increasingly difficult to dismiss or deny the aestheticization of the political. With digital technologies paving the way to new economic models, labour relations, and production conditions, the intertwinement of art and politics has reached a critical crossroads. Digital media’s potential to reach mass audiences has, at times, made mobilization, liberation, and revolution feel imminent. Simultaneously, however, the oppressive structures enabled, produced, or exacerbated by mechanical intervention can be dystopic. Walter Benjamin, in his paragonic 1935 text, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, identifies how artistic expression and the art-object function in relation to their reproducibility, attempting to situate works of culture and aesthetic within the shifting base and superstructure of the early to mid 20th century. Through his thorough investigation of various artistic media, Benjamin establishes the non-reproducible artwork’s aura as “its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be” (3), and continues to elucidate how the aura is degraded or destroyed in the process of mechanical reproduction. While Benjamin mourns the aura, he has no intention nor desire for its resurrection, given its compatibility with the goals of Fascism. This ideology provides “expression while preserving property”, introducing “aesthetics into political life” (19). 

Donald Trump, former American president and host of The Apprentice, has a particularly unique online and away-from-keyboard presence. As a celebrity turned politician, his relationship with the public, the political, and the aesthetic is a complex entanglement of far-right American ideologies, specific challenges of our current media ecology and digital-political landscape, and good old-fashioned marketing ploys. Somewhere in those intertwinements, Trump launched a collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in late 2022, titling the collection “Trump Cards”. These NFTs depict Trump in a variety of all-American, semi-mythologized poses and settings, seemingly pulled from only the most magical of nationalist, patriarchocapitalist wet dreams. From Trump as a soldier in a cowboy hat to a Captain America-esque figure shooting lasers from his eyes to standing on top of the world with a lion made of fire, it is hard to take these images seriously, let alone receive them as either artistic or political. They are, nonetheless, both artistic and political, and present a terrifying picture of Benjamin’s fear that politics will be “render[ed] aesthetic” (20) towards Fascist ends. 

Despite this seeming fulfillment of a Benjaminian prophecy, these “Trump Cards” materially differ from the ritualistic, Fascistically-inclined art of the pre-mechanical world. They are, after all, NFTs, an inherently mechanical, virtual, and computational medium. The NFT should, in theory, be an aura-less medium given its mechanical essence and lack of “ritualistic basis” (6). It is produced without a unique spatiotemporal situation, given its digitality, and should, accordingly, lack aura, thereby displaying the anti-Fascist potential Benjamin implies or dreams of. In actuality, however, the NFT’s basis in proprietary claims, cult value, and singular, unique existence, seem to resurrect the aura under new conditions and in new materiality. As our marketplaces and economies take on new, digitized, computational, and mechanical forms, the “transformation of the superstructure” (1) is well underway, and the base is following suit. “Only today can it be indicated what this form has taken.” (1) The NFT has resurrected the aura, and nowhere are the oppressive potentialities of this return from the dead more visible than in Donald Trump’s NFT collection. The “Trump Card” illustrates how the NFT works to reinstate the aura through a renewed engagement with uniqueness, an emphasis on cult value and cults of personality, and a capitalization on the public’s desire to “bring things ‘closer’ spatially and humanly” (5). In doing so, the NFT's mechanical existence does nothing to protect it from the Fascist aestheticization of the political, as embodied by “Trump Cards”. 

  In examining this mystical aura, Benjamin emphasizes the role of unique versus multiplied existence in defining our relationship with the particular art object, stating that “By making many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence” (4). This statement surely rings true in the realm of analog and traditional digital photography, a medium which relies on reproduction both technically and distributionally. “From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the ‘authentic’ print makes no sense.” (6) This is made all the more visible in a social media society, where images circulate on Instagram, Pinterest, Tik Tok, and Tumblr to the extent that context, creatorship, or any semblance of a once singular existence seems almost comedic. Benjamin seems somewhat prophetic in his understanding of this multiplied and reproduced new existence for art. One would imagine then that all digital art media should follow suit, engaging with multiplicity and distribution at the cost of singularity and uniqueness. 

The NFT, however, cannot quite fit this description. Despite its pure digitality, the NFT claims a new form of unique existence: that of property. Though replications of the images are distributable through screenshotting, downloading, and sharing, the NFT by its very definition depends on a singular proprietary claim for a singular owner. Thus, even when the image is surreptitiously shared or distributed, it is not, in fact, an NFT, but rather a photograph of an NFT. This is equivalent to photographing a painting, an object that still has an aura, rather than printing a photograph, an aura-less and already reproduced object. The NFT itself remains singular and unique through the singular and unique proprietary claim held over it. Unlike photography or even lithography and the letterpress, only one individual can lay claim to the NFT, thereby re-endowing it with that singularity associated with the aura. In this way, the NFT claims a new, proprietary aura which situates it within a new uniqueness and authenticity. 

In Benjamin’s conception of the aura, he argues that “the unique value of the ‘authentic’ work of art has its basis in ritual, the location of its original use value” (6). Benjamin’s examination of religious iconography and cave paintings positions art’s original function as religious and ritualistic, embodying “cult value” (7), versus its modern shift towards “exhibition value” (7) through “the emancipation of the various art practices from ritual [leading to] increasing opportunities for the exhibition of their products” (7). Again, these statements are salient analyses of photography and other media of reproduction but do not quite apply to the Non-Fungible Token. 

The NFT has worked to reinstate a sense of cult value that is uniquely appropriate for the secularized and technocapitalist cults of the 21st century. Benjamin outlines the “artificial build-up of the ‘personality’” (11), “the cult of the movie star” (11), and the “phony smell of a commodity” (12) as a response to the death of the actor’s aura in front of a camera. While he focuses on movie stars specifically, one might extend this to a much broader range of people given our ubiquitous and constant presentation of self on social media, as well as the oversaturation of digital media and images in contemporary society. For the purposes of this analysis, let us refocus on the “Trump Cards” and their titular celebrity politician, Donald Trump. This individual embodies this cult of personality perhaps better than anyone. It is upon his status, image, and “build-up of the ‘personality’” (11) that he has found his place in the political arena. He has a devout group of followers who have endowed him with an almost spiritual level of power and allure. The “Trump Cards” speak directly to this. No mortal man can claim to having hung out with a lion made of fire, and yet images depicting Trump as such are devoured on NFT markets and traded at astonishing prices. These images seem to take on the iconographic function of religious representations and restore cult value to the art object of the NFT. The cult value, however, comes not from the religious cult, but from the cult of personality, or the “cult of the movie star” (11). 

Having established the presence of the aura in an NFT through the employment of an altered cult value and the re-establishment of uniqueness through the singular proprietary claim, let us now turn to the reasoning for the success of this resurrected aura. Benjamin notes “the desire of contemporary masses to bring things ‘closer’ spatially and humanly” (5) as a defining feature of our relationship with art and the aesthetic in modernity. Yet again, Benjamin appears psychic and prophetic in his analyses. Nowhere are we ‘closer’ to the art we consume than on our phones, our Apple watches, our smart TVs, or our Pinterest boards. Everything must be brought closer to the self and the masses seem to desire fusion with the object which they behold. Benjamin argues that “Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an object at very close range” (5) and this is, as far as this essay is concerned, an essential truth of modern mass existence and modern mass media. He argues that this closeness is achieved “by way of its likeness, its reproduction” (5), and this generally rings true. The images which make up my phone lock screen, Instagram feed, and even the ones printed on my wall are precisely mechanical reproductions that have been brought closer to me. I am conscious of the reproductive process which has brought them close to me, and while I adore the images and my proximity to them, I am also aware that they are utterly auraless. Despite my best, most Communist intentions, I still mourn the aura and crave this ancient realm of authenticity which seems so far removed from modern aesthetics. It seems that many individuals in our time are hyper-aware of the flat, aura-less nature of the images we hold close. It seems that many crave a resurrection of the aura, yet do not wish to sacrifice their proximity and closeness to the work of art.

Herein lies the unique selling point of the Non-Fungible Token, particularly the “Trump Card”. One is able to be intimately close to an image while also preserving its aura. The unique ownership and proprietary claim not only resurrect and maintain the otherwise lost aura, but they provide a further dimension of nearness and closeness to the image. It becomes your unique property, and few things are as intimately close as the things which you possess. Furthermore, due to the “Trump Card”’s relationship with the figure of Donald Trump and alignment with these cults of personality, the NFT owner feels a newfound proximity to Trump himself and the personality which they worship. The aura alone is not enough to make a sensation in modernity, nor is proximity to an image. It is, instead, in the fusion of closeness, uniqueness, and celebrity that the “Trump Card” finds its audience and its success. The singularity of the NFT is newly activated by its intense proximity to the owner, and this proximity is newly activated in its relationship with Trump himself, creating a medium perfectly suited to the needs of our modern media ecology and economy. 

Just as Benjamin wrote “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Mechanical Reproduction” at a point of immense superstructural and basic change, so too is this response written in an era of new economic and cultural modelling. As our financial logics become digital logics, as capitalism comes to depend on technology, databases, capture mechanics, and algorithms, as the marketplace becomes the Facebook Marketplace, so too is the world of the cultural, the aesthetic, and the political shifting. In Benjamin’s thoroughly political epilogue of the text, Fascism’s presence is rendered visible. 

Fascism attempts to organize the newly created proletarian masses without affecting the property structure which the masses strive to eliminate. Fascism sees its salvation in giving these masses not their right, but instead a chance to express themselves. The masses have a right to change property relations; Fascism seeks to give them an expression while preserving property. The logical result of Fascism is the introduction of aesthetics into political life. (19)

Staring at an image of a former United States president with lasers shooting out of his eyes, I cannot help but feel that this introduction is complete, that Fascism has thoroughly aestheticized the political. The NFT, as embodied by the “Trump Card”, does nothing to change the property relations of which Benjamin speaks. If anything, it reifies them, reemphasizing ownership. Its potential for expression, however, remains intact, aligning it perfectly with Benjamin’s assertion of “expression while preserving property” (19). As our economy has become an increasingly digital one, this means of expression has followed suit. The NFT becomes the aural artwork which preserves, even celebrates, the specific property relations of the 21st century thus far. In resurrecting the aura, refocusing cult value, and capitalizing on the masses’ desire for closeness, the “Trump Card” serves as the perfect artistic vehicle through which to aestheticize politics toward Fascist ends.