The masks are expected to sell for between $15,000 to $75,000, which equates to around £10,784 to £53,920.
MF DOOM fans can now purchase a piece of the late artist’s legacy in the form of one-off art pieces. Yesterday (11 March), digital art platform and marketplace Illust Space announced that it had partnered with DOOM’s wife Jasmine Dumile and record label Rhymesayers Entertainment to auction off a series of signed, augmented reality DOOM masks in the form of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. The crypto auction is now live and ends at 6am (GMT) tomorrow morning (13 March).
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NFTs are cryptocurrency assets. They form part of Ethereum’s blockchain and work by using digital, or ‘smart’, contracts to determine the rights to digital art, unique items, collectables and more. Each NFT, in this instance an AR mask, can be purchased, sold and traded, much like physical objects. However, it will retain its certification of provenance as the collectable or item in question changes hands.
Ten percent of auction proceeds will go back to DOOM’s estate in the form of royalties to support the family and fund future creative projects. Current mask holders will also make individual donations.
The new auction follows a 2020 collaboration between DOOM and Illust Space. Back in October, DOOM and Illust Space auctioned off a selection of exclusive AR masks, which were sold as NFTs. The auction took place just days before DOOM’s passing.
“We are living in this ubiquitous digital layer now,” Illust Space’s CCO Tim Prochak told Decrypt at the time. “We don’t quite realise it, but if you look at the numbers of people using augmented reality every day, this is happening.”
Last month, a petition was launched with a goal to rename a street in New York after DOOM. Listen to a DOOM tribute mix, helmed by KeiyaA, and watch three US college professors and hip-hop scholars break down their favourite DOOM lyrics below.
