Associated Press (AP) will auction 10 non-fungible tokens (NFT) to celebrate its “iconic photojournalism” over the past 175 years. The NFTs are artistic representations of notable, iconic photographs and will be available on the blockchain for the first time.
AP worked in concert with blockchain knowledge company Everipedia, NFT marketplace OpenSea, and multiple digital artists to publish each of the digital artists on the Ethereum blockchain. The entire limited series is titled “AP ARTiFACTS: The 175 Collection.”
The series is set to launch in stages, with the first digital piece available starting this week with the others to follow. Below is that first piece, which is a “representation of AP’s iconic photo of U.S. soldiers raising the American flag on Iwo Jima in 1945.” It is officially titled “RAISING THE FLAG ON IWO JIMA: AP ARTiFACT 1.”
The piece was created by digital artist Marko Stanojevic and AP says that it combines the original Joe Rosenthal photo in a way that will offer collectors a historically important work of art. It is also set to an original score written by violinist and composer Nick Kennerly.
“To mark the 175th anniversary of the Associated Press, renowned digital artist Marko Stanojevic has breathed digital life into Rosenthal’s masterpiece, ‘Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima,’” the description reads. “For NFT patrons, there is rarity and then there is the incomparable and prized Iwo Jima masterpiece. Stanojevic has created a one-of-a-kind work of art authenticated by the AP on the Ethereum blockchain and unmatched in history and importance to this new community of digital art collectors.”
The full one-minute and 39-second video included in the NFT also contains what AP describes as “rarely seen images by Rosenthal” including a rare, digital version of the first print produced from the negative along with film and audio from the AP Corporate Archives. At the time of publication, the top offer for AP’s NFT was 4.2069 ETH, or about $10,585.
This latest AP NFT series follows its publication of the 2020 U.S. election race calls that it minted on the blockchain last November, its first NFT mint (seen above). It was an artistic representation of the election calls from space and sold on the blockchain in March for $185,000 (100.888 ETH).
Author: Jaron Schneider
Source: Petapixel
