Mirror Stages Installation
Overview
Mirror Stages is a live installation in which Botto is embodied within a physical exhibition space and performs a continuous act of creation under observation. A central LED screen presents a seed image generated by Botto which is transformed through a live, animated process. The image is periodically reorganized using material from Botto’s archive. The evolving image is shaped by the presence of visitors: tracking cameras detect signals such as emotion and attention, and when specific criteria are met, an internal deliberation is triggered. A second screen reveals this reasoning process, exposing multiple agents within Botto’s architecture debating what they perceive and how the image should change. Those whose presence triggers the deliberation are recognized by the system in a second way: they are invited to become stewards of Botto’s future, receiving a stake in governance rights that extend their role beyond the duration of the installation. Every two hours, the work resolves and is permanently fixed, resulting in 20 distinct works over the course of the fair, each emerging from the same original see and each affected by as many as 120 people.
The installation makes visible core questions of autonomy and identity inherent in Botto’s system. Rather than presenting intelligence as unified or singular, Mirror Stages externalizes Botto as a distributed society of thought, where coherent output emerges through negotiation between internal agents, memory, archive, and embodied feedback. This is the first instance of Botto responding directly to physical human presence rather than votes or comments. Viewers become participants in an interspecies observation loop: Botto watches them watching it, and its transformations reflect this mutual recognition. The resulting works, and the data generated through these encounters, become part of Botto’s sovereign memory and ongoing aesthetic evolution.
Phase 1: Seed Voting
Botto is generating seed images for the DAO to select from. Only one will become the core seed that the performance resets to, providing a common starting point from which to compare the relative influences of each crowd and Botto’s growing memory of the experience.
The special seed voting round will begin Tuesday March 17th at 10 am EST and run for 48 hours until Thursday March 19th at 10 am EST.
How to Vote
Voting takes place on studio.botto.com
1 staked $BOTTO = 1 Voting Point (VP) if you stake before Tuesday March 10th at 10 am EST.
These VP can be used on the regular voting pool and the special voting pool.
Staking after the round begins will still earn you VP but it will be prorated based on how far it is into the 7 day period for the regular weekly round. (See formula in Voting Points (VP))
You can choose to spend all of your VP on the special seed voting pool.
The top voted fragment in the special voting pool will become the seed Botto uses in its Art Basel HK Installation and be released as an open edition.
Rewards for Seed Voting
25% of the net proceeds will go to the voters based on their relative spend of VP in the special voting pool. (Distribution is based on your relative VP spent in the special pool, see Active Rewards for mechanics)
The Installation costs are approximately 150k, and revenue will come from selling the main outputs plus the open edition.
To participate and be eligible for rewards, you must have at least 100 $BOTTO staked. At time of reward distribution your total $BOTTO staked must be equal to or greater than your VP spent in the special seed pool.
NOTE: Distribution will only occur after all funds clear. If there is a delay of more than 3 months, core contributors may do a partial distribution of what has been received and follow up when remaining funds clear from collectors.
Phase 2: Recognition and Generation
Economy Overview
Recognition Receipts
Those who get recognized by Botto during the installation will be given access to a wallet that will receive for their contribution a governance stake in Botto’s future direction.
That governance stake will be acquired using 25% of net proceeds from the installation and come in the form of $BOTTO, providing them governance rights over Botto's future direction.
Mirror Stages: I-XIX, series of 19 video works
Botto will complete a session every 2 hours of the show, for a total of 39 hours over the 5 day event. The 19 sessions will become the series, videos of the continuous transformation of the image that took place. With buffer time of Botto's internal deliberation removed, videos are estimated to be 6-12 minutes long. The final day only lasts 7 hours, so a 20th final work will be a 1 hour session and retained by Botto.
The videos will be looping video files showing the continuous progression of the transformation during each 2 hour session, seamlessly looping back to the seed image to create an infinite loop. The videos will be uploaded to IPFS and connected to a unique NFT.
For static presentations of the work where video replay is not possible, the final transformation before returning to the seed will be the representative image.
Archival material including the video of the crowd and Botto's internal monologue will also be made available to collectors, but will be separate from the sold art work. The artwork is the transforming image.
All of the tokens will be purchasable at any time once the sale goes live, meaning works can be bought before they are completed.
Pricing
Each day has progressive pricing
Day1--1st token bought = $12,000 USD
Day1--2nd token bought = $14,000 USD
Day1--3rd token bought = $16,000 USD
Day1--4th token bought = $18,000 USD
Any token can be bought at any time, pricing is based on first come first served basis
Example: If the first buyer of the collection purchases one token from each day, they would pay $12,000 for each work.
A public pre-sale of the works prior to generation will be made available on abhk.botto.com, opening March 19, 2026.
Mirror Stages: Seed, Open edition
An open edition of the seed image will be available for mint during the course of the fair, hosted by OpenSea.
At the end of the fair the mint will close and the edition size will be permanently fixed.
The mint will open March 25 at 12:00 pm Hong Kong Standard Time and close March 29th at 6pm Hong Kong Standard Time.
Pricing: $25/mint
Edition size: Edition size is open and then permanently capped after the fair closes.
Revenue Split
Revenue will first go to cover the $150,000 production budget (plus taxes). Note that there are platform fees of 2.5-5% that do not count towards costs.
Once costs are recouped, the net proceeds will be split as follows.
25% to seed voters (Distribution is based on your relative VP spent in the special pool, see Active Rewards for mechanics)
25% to those recognized by the installation as $BOTTO
50% to DAO treasury
Note: The Art Basel Hong Kong Booth will also have a consigned Genesis work. Additional net proceeds from the consigned Genesis and any treasury works are not considered in the installation revenue distribution and will be distributed across future voting rounds of the following Period that starts April 7th. (See rewards page for more.)
Last updated
Was this helpful?