The First Decentralized Physical Museum Will Be Managed & Curated By The Public
A new organization called Arkive seeks to liberate historical artifacts and artwork from the clutches of private collectors and return them to the public.
Arkive will operate as what has been touted as the first decentralized museum, with no single physical location, instead lending all of its pieces to museums around the world and providing access to visitors regardless of borders.
Artworks will be chosen based on votes. After signing up with Arkive, members will have a say in what piece the establishment should obtain next via the company’s Discord server.
In an interview with TechCrunch, McLeod shares that some of Arkive’s early members include curators, gallery buyers, and collectors. As a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), Arkive has just received US$9.7 million in venture capital funding.
Acquired items will then be transferred into non-fungible tokens, which will capture the authenticity of the piece. McLeod states that blockchain technology gives members the ability to own fractions of the different works.
The group was launched via stealth mode on Wednesday and has already secured its first piece, the patent for the first computer, or the ENIAC. Arkive’s team then flew to California to obtain the patent from historian Jeremy Norman.
The ENIAC patent represents the first programmable digital computer and serves as the foundation for the electronic devices we use today.
— Arkive 🛠(@arkive) June 8, 2022
âš™ï¸ 18,000 vacuum tubes and 7,200 diodes
💻 Increased computing speed by 2,400
🧨 Calculated a ballistics trajectory in seconds pic.twitter.com/3WC59pMENG
A second acquisition of a 1980s painting by Lynn Hershman Leeson, entitled Seduction, has just been secured and will be part of a traveling exhibition along with the ENIAC. Both pieces will eventually end up in appropriate museums for the long haul.
📣 The people of Arkive have voted and we're excited to announce our second acquisition under the theme “My Body, My Machine”... Seduction (1985) by @lynnhershman8.
— Arkive 🛠(@arkive) July 1, 2022
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Full story: https://t.co/zJ4e1sqMMg pic.twitter.com/ronb1hMASA
[via TechCrunch and Fast Company, cover image via Arkive]
