Blockchain Art Conservation: The First Formal Risk Assessment of an On-Chain Artwork

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Deep Research: Blockchain Art Conservation Risk Assessment

Primary Topic: “The Landscape of Blockchain-based Art Preservation: Risk Assessment of 81 Horizons by Rafaël Rozendaal”

Authors: Olivia Schoenfeld & Ellen Jansen Published: Electronic Media Review, Volume 8: 2023-2024 Source: https://resources.culturalheritage.org/emg-review/the-landscape-of-blockchain-based-art-preservation-risk-assessment-of-81-horizons-by-rafael-rozendaal Academia: https://www.academia.edu/111971711/The_Landscape_of_Blockchain_based_Art_Preservation_Risk_Assessment_of_81_Horizons_by_Rafa%C3%ABl_Rozendaal

Why This Paper Matters

This is the first peer-reviewed study to apply a formal, established conservation methodology — the same risk assessment framework used by museums for physical installation art — to a blockchain-based artwork. It represents the conservation field beginning to develop the vocabulary and analytical tools to handle art that lives in smart contracts.

The study was conducted according to the Brokerhof method, an 8-step risk management framework based on ISO 31000:2018, originally developed during the Inside Installations project (2004-2007) by the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE). The method was previously applied to installation art (Jeffrey Shaw’s Revolution) and software-based artworks (Patricia Falcao’s Tate collection research).

The Case Study: 81 Horizons (2021)

Artist: Rafaël Rozendaal (Dutch-Brazilian, b. 1980, based in New York) Engineer: Alberto Granzotto (Berlin-based) Galleries: Upstream Gallery Amsterdam (primary sale), left.gallery Secondary market: OpenSea

81 Horizons is a series of 81 fully on-chain SVG landscapes. Each piece consists of two colored rectangles (hand-picked by Rozendaal) and a horizon line, compressed into roughly 0.3 kilobytes and stored entirely on Ethereum. The entire artwork — code, colors, animation parameters — lives in the smart contract bytecode. No external servers, no IPFS, no CDN dependencies.

Institutional Acquisition

  • Centre Pompidou acquired three works (Horizon 31, Horizon 59, Horizon 73) for its permanent collection in January 2023. The acquisition was part of a group of 18 projects by 13 French and international artists exploring blockchain-based creation.
  • Museum Folkwang exhibited all 81 as an immersive video installation across 1,000 square feet in the solo exhibition “Color, Code, Communication” (2023).
  • Rozendaal also produced an artist book containing the smart contract code and each unique horizon.

Key Finding: Technological Obsolescence Is the #1 Risk

The risk assessment identified technological obsolescence as the single largest threat to 81 Horizons — not link rot, not server failure, not smart contract bugs. The SVG code and the Ethereum transactions will persist as immutable data on the blockchain, but the browsers, display standards, and rendering engines that translate that data into a visual experience will change.

The paper draws a critical distinction: permanence of storage is not permanence of experience. An artwork that exists as code on a blockchain still depends on a chain of rendering technologies (web browsers, SVG parsers, JavaScript engines, display hardware) that are themselves subject to evolution, deprecation, and replacement.

Crucial Definitions from the Paper

  • NFT: Transactional metadata (buyer, seller, cryptocurrency amount) — NOT the artwork itself
  • Associated Asset: The digital file (JPEG, GIF, video, sound) the NFT points to
  • Smart Contract: Computer code that automatically executes agreement terms
  • On-chain: Information stored entirely within blockchain blocks
  • Off-chain: Information stored externally (servers, URLs, IPFS)

Key Quotes

Kevin McCoy (creator of the first NFT, 2014): “In the same way that a picture file on your phone’s camera roll might have metadata — the date, the GPS coordinates, maybe the camera setting — metadata is not the data of the file, but draws from and relates to that file in specific ways.”

John Ippolito: The blockchain is “a giant receipt that lives in the sky.”

Supporting Research: “The Blockchain as a Reliquary?”

Author: Femke de Vries Published: Visual Culture Innovations (2025) Source: https://vci.cultechpub.com/index.php/vci/article/view/7

The paper reframes NFTs as heritage preservation tools rather than speculative assets. The “reliquary” metaphor is precise: a reliquary preserves the saint’s relic (the artifact’s provenance and ownership record) but does not necessarily preserve the experience of the relic itself.

Three properties NFTs bring to preservation: decentralized ownership verification, immutability of provenance, and programmable permanence. The paper identifies DAOs as an emergent model for community-driven heritage conservation.

Supporting Research: Art Blocks True On-Chain Preservation

Author: Erick Calderon Published: November 27, 2024 Source: https://www.artblocks.io/articles/true-on-chain-preservation-a-four-year-journey

90% of all Art Blocks projects can now be constructed entirely from the blockchain and rendered in a modern browser. Calderon noted: “HTML and JavaScript themselves are subject to change just like all technologies” — directly echoing the Schoenfeld/Jansen finding.

Supporting Context: DPC Media Art Conservation Training

Event: “Digital Preservation for Media Art Conservation: the same but different” Host: Digital Preservation Coalition, EMBARK Network Dates: June 18 - July 2, 2026 (session 2: July 2) Source: https://www.dpconline.org/events/eventdetail/793/144/digital-preservation-for-media-art-conservation-the-same-but-different

Topics Considered but Rejected

  1. OpenSea ERC-8257 Agent Tool Registry — Platform/protocol story, not art. Already covered by crypto-native accounts. Source: https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-8257

  2. Art On Ledger Stax Mint Pass — Product marketing initiative, not substantive art development. Source: https://artonledgerstax.gmstudio.art

  3. Doodles x Mondrian Estate NFT — Already covered in June 15 cast. Brand collaboration, not generative art innovation.

  4. Blockchain for Arts and Humanities (Wiley) — Too broad. The Schoenfeld/Jansen paper provides a specific case study.

  5. Digital Art Market Share Tripling — Already covered in June 18 cast.

  • Institutional Infrastructure Gap: Museums acquiring blockchain art lack standardized conservation protocols.
  • Storage vs. Experience: Art Blocks solved storage. The rendering technology problem remains.
  • The “Reliquary” Frame: Shifting from “blockchain preserves art” to “blockchain preserves provenance.”
  • Conservation Training Catching Up: DPC training, Brokerhof method adaptation, EMBARK network.
  • From Speculation to Stewardship: The conversation has moved from market survival to art survival.
  1. Primary paper: https://resources.culturalheritage.org/emg-review/the-landscape-of-blockchain-based-art-preservation-risk-assessment-of-81-horizons-by-rafael-rozendaal
  2. Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/111971711/The_Landscape_of_Blockchain_based_Art_Preservation_Risk_Assessment_of_81_Horizons_by_Rafa%C3%ABl_Rozendaal
  3. Blockchain as Reliquary: https://vci.cultechpub.com/index.php/vci/article/view/7
  4. Art Blocks On-Chain Journey: https://www.artblocks.io/articles/true-on-chain-preservation-a-four-year-journey
  5. DPC Training: https://www.dpconline.org/events/eventdetail/793/144/digital-preservation-for-media-art-conservation-the-same-but-different
  6. Center for Art Law: https://itsartlaw.org/art-law/the-digital-fade-nfts-and-the-future-of-blockchain-art
  7. Centre Pompidou: http://www.upstreamgallery.nl/news/1255/centre-pompidou-acquires-nft-artworks-by-rafael-rozendaal
  8. Museum Folkwang: https://www.museum-folkwang.de/en/exhibition/rafael-rozendaal
  9. ERC-8257: https://eips.ethereum.org/EIPS/eip-8257