Marina Abramović Element features three NFT drops and an elaborate gamified aspect.
by Min Chen 
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After unveiling a line of wellness products, designing a group of chairs, and bringing her meditation method to the WeTransfer platform, Marina Abramović is heading back to the blockchain for her next side project.
This summer, the performance artist will be channeling her practice into a series of NFT drops as part of Marina Abramović Element (MAE). The outing follows her first Web3 foray in 2021—which saw her 2001 work The Hero offered as NFTs—but is far more involved. Created in partnership with digital art marketplace TAEX, it encompasses three NFT releases with interactive elements to engage collectors in various aspects of Abramović’s work.
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MAE, said TAEX’s founder Inna Bazhenova, will create “an immersive experience where participants from the worlds of art and Web3 become active co-creators of her legacy.”
Still from the Marina Abramović Element. Photo courtesy of MAE and TAEX.
The collection’s three themed drops trace Abramović’s creative evolution: Art, which delves into the symbols and archetypes that have featured in her practice; Life, which highlights how she incorporates locations, gestures, and outfits into her works; and Marina Abramović Method, which explores her journey to self-discovery via the founding of her own institute. The three segments will be released from May through September.
Within each of these drops are tokens with a range of formats and rarity levels, from still images (Ordinary) to looped animations (Rare) to looped animations that are adapted to real-life moon cycles for some reason (Epic).
The game aspect is layered throughout and takes the form of Transformational Crystals, which can be earned by playing the Maze and Counting Crystals games during the second and third drops respectively. These collectibles allow participants to mint limited-edition 5D MAE Performance and 5D MAE Avatar NFTs.
What’s the deal with 5D? It’s to do with the fifth dimension, which, per Abramović, one can enter only by renewing one’s physical being: “You will be able to carry your body to the fourth dimension, but not to the fifth dimension because your body is too heavy. You will have a crystal in your body in the fifth dimension.”
Marina Abramović. Photo: Marco Anelli © 2022.
And there’s more. After its final drop, MAE wraps up in November with an event called The Great Mint. There, collectors will get to mint the project’s ultimate NFT, the MAE token.
But to participate, people must first have amassed quite the trove: either three Epic NFTs from each of the drops and a Transformation Crystal, or three Rare NFTs and a Transformation Crystal. These combos will pave the way to the MAE token, which takes the form of video artworks or animations featuring Abramović’s avatar performing new iterations of her iconic pieces. These versions, we’re promised, will see the artist’s avatar transcend “the boundaries of physicality, enabling impossible performances.”
Still from the Marina Abramović Element. Photo courtesy of MAE and TAEX.
This entire elaborate project is based on a fictional story Abramović penned, according to the press announcement, and likely emerges from her wish to marry the immateriality of performance art with that of digital art.
“Working today with technology and creating my own avatar is a way to develop a new relationship between the performer and the public,” she explained in a statement. “The public’s interaction provides the process through which immateriality can be transformed into energy.”
Not all of MAE is immaterial, though. Before its first drop, the project will stage an April 8 preview at London’s Moco Museum, where visitors can presumably glimpse the releases. The artist will also be present.
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Marina Abramović Has a Wild New NFT Project: ‘You Will Have a Crystal in Your Body’ – Artnet News
