Letter from the Editors: Heat of the Moment

GM. This is the first issue of Arkive Magazine, the publication arm of the museum. Over the last few months, we’ve been in the midst of a massive experiment. What would it look like if a museum was collectively owned, built, and run using the decentralizing technologies, and ideologies, of Web3?

Truthfully, we’re just getting started. But for the past eight months, Arkive has been collecting objects that tell stories about important moments at the intersection of art and technology, under the curatorial theme “When Technology Was a Game Changer.” In April 2022, Arkive completed its first acquisition—the 1954 patent for the first-ever electronic general purpose computer, the ENIAC—through a community voting process. Since then, we’ve acquired seven more objects, including a key early photograph from the pathbreaking feminist artist Lynn Hershman Leeson, the original fans from Madonna’s iconic 1990 “Vogue” performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, and works by the artists Aria Dean, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, and Allora & Calzadilla. 

Each of these acquisitions represented a chance to test new ways of creating conversation around history, culture, relevance, and the construction of value: voting on curator-presented works over Zoom; threads on Discord about art, culture, and politics; in-person meetings in a dozen cities across 4 continents. And, as of this writing, we have thousands of member applications. 

Arkive Magazine is not so much about content as it is about context. It is a growing, shifting offering that we imagine as the longer-form, more “on the record” counterpart to the everyday conversations that happen online. Off the heels of our first-ever Art Basel Miami Beach, where you might have seen a broadsheet version of the magazine, the online edition will update on a rolling basis. Inside, you’ll hear from core team members on the future of museums, find dispatches on the first few months of Arkive from the people who’ve been here from the start, read an essay by member Alex Stein on Prometheus, technocrats, and Web3, and much more. 

We’re building something new, and we want to be thoughtful as we do it. This is the place for that. Gradually, we hope to become a resource for critical reflection on the relationship between art, Web3, and culture by inviting rigorous, creative takes from practitioners, scholars, creators, critics, and enthusiasts alike. We hope you’ll join us.