MNA

INSIDE THE MoNA · AN UNFORGETTABLE FIVE MINUTES

A museum of NFTs that are worth nothing. Which, by now, is all of them.

The Museum of No Assets at night: a ten-column colonnade, a lit saucer dome, a red carpet, city lights behind
Chapter one · The palace

In 2021 the internet spent billions on links to pictures. Someone had to build them a palace.

Modelled in Blender, lit with about a hundred sources baked into the stone, and streamed into your browser in one 12 MB file.

Chapter two · The rules

Three rules.One of them is about you.

  1. 01

    Admission is free.

    Everyone skips the stone. It says the museum is free, which is the last free thing that happens.

    TICKET$0
  2. 02

    Albert Elsewhere leaves you 300 coins. The building takes one a second.

    Five minutes, from the doors in. Then the doors lock and the museum keeps the fee.

    YOUR WALLET300
  3. 03

    Look at the art. It pays you. It also dies.

    Hold a stare and a work pays you coins. Its price falls while you look. At zero it is not found, forever.

    THE ART−40%
Chapter three · Attention is the fee

Looking isthe economy.

NFTs were worth exactly as much as people were looking at them. So in MoNA, looking is the whole economy. Try it.

1.6 sof staring pays 45 coins, then 62% of that, then less again.
40%of a work's price goes every second you stare at it.
$0and it is not found, forever. The Screenshot is the only work that rises.
300 coins · 5:00DOCENT v2.1
NOT FOUND
+45
Pixel Gentleman #4471
Unknown, from a batch of 10,000 · 2021
$418,000
Chapter four · The building

A real palace before it is a web page.

01
The saucer dome on stepped rings under the stars
The domeA saucer dome, a drum of windows, a lantern.
02
The attic and colonnade from the approach
The frontTen columns on one stylobate, four velvet banners, a city behind.
03
The bronze doors at the top of the red carpet
The doorsThey open only when you reach the top step, to a fanfare whose top note cracks.
04
The rotunda: Augustus as a radium hologram, standing on his plinth
The rotundaTwelve uplights, twelve coves, an oculus open to the night.
05
The Long Gallery, a coffered barrel vault
The Long GalleryA coffered vault. Six works in six metals.
06
The Rug Pull, 2022, a half-rolled kilim and a suitcase on a plinth
The Rug Pull, 2022Wool, leather and forty thousand investors.
Chapter five · The permanent collection

Permanent isa strong word.

Each one cost as much as a house. Each one is losing value right now, a little faster while you look at it.

Chapter six · Augustus

A hologram of a drawingof a sculpture.

The demo: Augustus as a radium hologram on his plinth in the rotunda
THE DEMORadium light, on his plinth. Sixty-two lines in one voice.
The original: the scanned marble bust of Augustus on a plinth in the corner of the gallery
THE ORIGINALCarrara marble. Not for sale. Not a demo.
The brand, walking around.

The line-drawn bust from the logo stands in the rotunda in radium light, on his plinth, and talks you through the tour in 62 recorded lines.

He degrades with your wallet.

DOCENT v2.1, then v1.4 (DEGRADED) below 75 coins, then v0.3 (DEPRECATED) at zero. His light dims and his horn motif comes back on a trombone.

The original was there all along.

A scanned marble bust, in the corner of the gallery the whole time. THE ORIGINAL · NOT FOR SALE · NOT A DEMO.

Chapter seven · The score

An orchestra thatgoes broke with you.

No music file in the museum: eleven sampled instruments and a score written as data, performed live, so the music can answer the economy. This is the page performing it.

0:00 / 1:28
Chapter eight · The film

Sixty seconds,narrated by Augustus.

The tour, 16:9. Clean renders of the museum, eased moves, the score carrying the cuts.

The reel, 9:16, for Instagram. The orchestra plays over the stars before Augustus says a word.

Chapter nine · The curtain call

Thank you for looking.

It was the only thing you paid with.

AUGUSTUS · DOCENT v1.4 (DEGRADED)

Leave with proof of nothing.

Your name, a ledger of what your looking cost, a radium seal, one serial per visit. Write your name on it.