Online exhibition lets visitors invest in future markets

Guggenheim launches Åzone, an online exhibition where visitors trade information on potential futures in a simulated stock market.

Museums are increasingly looking for ways to make art accessible through new technology, especially to those who can’t physically make it in. The Guggenheim gallery’s latest exhibition, Åzone, challenges this method of adding tech to offline art, by letting visitors be a part of, and help form the new technology.

The show begins with a marketplace of potential futures, such as ‘Manageable Weather’ or ‘Bloodless War’. Upon entering, visitors are granted 10,000 Å (Åzone’s local currency), which they can use to invest in these futures. Visitors can then gain more currency by sharing articles (or ‘tips’) related to these futures — a principle designed to contradict the monopolizing insider information provided by the powerful few in regular stock markets. A physical representation platform demonstrate market activity in real-time, allowing visitors to monitor which futures the ‘traders’ consider most valuable to human society.

The show lets users trade information as currency, echoing the nature of the digital world. How else could art illustrate and simulate potential future business models?