The Fakes Museum

Inspiration/Origins:

First Off, Huge shoutout to Grim R of Grims Gallery. He’s been doing this long before I did.

It was actually the first place I visited/researched when I was deciding on making a museum. The first thing I noticed however is that a spacious parcel can barely hold enough fakes to cut it for a museum.

So I started devising a plan to secure 2, possibly 3 spacious parcels side-by-side. Especially considering that you can eventually connect parcels.   

I like to do firsts, and to my knowledge no one else had a side-by-side parcel museum.

This museum would also serve as my tribute/contribution to the Fake Gotchi Project as a place for artists to get exposure, as well as advertise my own NFTs.

I already have land rights tied to my NFTs, so if I was to make this a desirable, popular spot- then land rights for the museum could also get tied into NFT rewards. Ultimately for the holders of my four utility Fake Gotchis.

Considerations:

The idea for the approach to this Museum was based on a lot of criteria. Ultimately, I wanted to build a fun place for people to gather and hang out. There were a lot of things that I took notice of when visiting Grim’s parcel that I thought I could, maybe not “improve” on but definitely do things differently in a way that increased the agency, flow, and efficiency of the space. (It’s what I get paid to do IRL, after all.)

Obstacles: Installations are obstacles, if they are all over the place it can be a major hinderance to moving throughout a space. I focused on placing installations in places that would ultimately become barriers anyways. 

Performance: Installations and tiles(and art) also take up more GPU and CPU resources, slowing performance on peoples computers. I decided to use them very sparingly and only to emphasize different areas of the Museum. 

Flow: Aside from simply running into obstacles, one of the things that really annoys me about the gotchiverse are when the display pop-ups obscure the artwork. It’s unavoidable if everything is mashed together, so I envisioned making isles that would separate artworks but also provide a clear path for people to view the artwork and take screenshots, etc. without the pop-up getting in the way. Deciding on the black-ish background to serve as a visual path eliminated the need/want to place tiles in the artwork area - this also helps with performance. And it’s aesthetically minimalist, 💗. 

Long term design consideration: 

Since I can/will build between parcels, I long imagined a makeshift maze to slow the movement between parcels. Now, considering everything written above you might ask, “AwkwardAI, why tf you type all that stuff about flow and obstacles if you just gonna make obstacles?!?!”. 

And, great question!! 

The idea is that the longer people spend in the Museum, the more exposure the artists will get. I don’t want people to simply show up for drops and then dip. So even though there are 2 bounce gates in the museum, only 1 will be open at a time. Meaning you need to manually navigate to the other side, which is where the giveaways and drops will happen. There will also be a wall around the parcel (notice the gap I leave?)

Easy to get in, not so easy to get out. 

Guild?

I’ve been trying to get my guild into Aavegotchi for about a year(some members are but not all of us). Maybe it will happen, idk. At any rate, I told them about the museum and how we should integrate a guild lodge there or nearby if/when they join. In my mind the guild lodge would either fit between the parcels or on the SW corner of the bottom parcel. So if the artwork placement on the lower parcel seems sparse/loose, that’s the reason - there will probably be a lodge there so I don’t want to paint myself into a corner. 

Procurement: 

As part of my commitment to Fake Gotchis, there is a stipulation in my light paper that 30% of profits will be spent on purchasing Fake Gotchis for the museum. 

This is an active effort to support other artists. 

There is a great balancing act between supporting artists and purchasing NFTs on a budget without tanking the price of that artists NFT. 

No one is asking me to do this, it’s something I decided to take on myself, with my own money - so I need to be very smart about how I procure pieces. 

The rarer something is the more likely I will prioritize securing it for the museum. NFTs in the 100 mint range are a lower priority unless they are part of a series or there is a compelling nature to the artwork. 

[side note: I’ve long told myself, “if I could get a 3rd parcel I’d name it ‘the 100’s’, and it would be dedicated to fake gotchis with a 100 mints”.. If it happened it would probably be the middle parcel.)

Part of what makes this museum special is the concentration of super rare pieces all in one area.

Of course it’s not just super rare pieces, I also strive to showcase artists that imo need the exposure - i.e. I think their pieces are undervalued. 

In my mind people come to see the super rare stuff and maybe discover a lesser known artists stuff that they really like; This is the justification for spending more on the rarer items. 

If I don’t have your piece displayed there are probably a couple of reasons;

1. There is only so much space, I do have rotating sections.

(A note on Super Digital Bros: I see you guys, you have a lot of NFT’s and I don’t have the space to do you justice, at most I could do a section for you where we rotate them out weekly or so. My other concern is I don’t think music can be played off a parcel right now, which is just more of a disservice to the platform needed to fully appreciate/display your work. Again, you have a lot of pieces- I even had to kneecap the gotchi bulls area.)

2. You are charging too much for me to justify the purchase. I would never tell an artist what they should market value their piece at(unless they asked) but I do have an internal gauge of the cost/benefits to me as a purchaser and curator. Considering I never plan to sell any single piece for profit(only doubles), I am fine to pay a fair market value for a piece. 

3. You haven’t given me a good chance to buy. There are several fakes that were minted and then never sold, or sold a couple of auctions but then the artist stopped for some reason. I get that the market dipped a bit but I promise you there is still demand. There are also auctions that I got outbid on that I have not seen available since.

4. You have insulted or name called me (It’s happened). I have no tolerance for toxic people and will not display their art. You don’t need to be nice to me or suck-up but I do expect a modicum of reciprocated mutual respect, at least enough to avoid getting insulted or name called.

(A note on procurement: I do not want to take a piece on loan from an artist to display, mainly because I don’t like to owe anything to anyone, but secondly because I run my own collection, a museum, parcel rights WL, and weekly raffles - I need to minimize any additional exposure to responsibility, lest I spread myself too thin.)

Layout: 

I originally wanted the entire top left side to be reserved for my own pieces on 8x8 displays. After I initially set it up I realized how gaudy and over the top it was. It felt better(in my soul) to repurpose some of those 8x8’s to make a section where each “featured” artist could get their own 8x8 and then some 4x4’s. 

I liked the idea of sections and wings and broke up the parcels as such. I like having dedicated areas, maintaining the displays on a parcel can become tiresome and it helps to only need to focus on a few areas at time. 

The intent with getting connected parcels was to connect the parcels. I still wrestle with whether or not it should be only available via bounce gate, and I might play with that mechanic a lot over the course of 2023. 

I do want a maze/courtyard of sorts dividing the parcels, I’ve loved the idea of human scale mazes ever since I saw “The Shining”. This is also something I still wrestle with. Since there are two parcels, two bounce gates, it makes sense to make the museum a circle or “U” shape, where you can come in one bounce gate and leave through the other, inactive bounce gate. This would force people to basically view a majority of the museum each time they visit. Especially if events are located on the inactive bounce gate side.

The top parcel is clearly the area for “Featured artists” and my own artwork, so there was a need to do something equally appealing with the bottom parcel. I decided on making something I call “the Hall of Classics”, if there was room it shoulda been 8x8’s and maybe it will one day. 

I also needed an area that could rotate with new pieces. Beyond that I’m still trying to find the best way to fit more collections in the bottom parcel, even as I write this.

(A note: I design my parcel layouts in photoshop first, then calculate the alchemica needed to craft the displays. It’s pretty smooth and fun process. I will most likely never go as large as a 16x16 display because the space needed to display the artists is too valuable.)

Events: 

I’m making this up as I go, (lol) but rolling with the changes Aavegotchi is making to the gotchiverse makes it easy. Superchat, Dropping Licks are now options, and as more become available; they will be utilized to attract players to the parcel.