The Examined Coin
A coin that cannot say what it is will be priced by whoever shouts. This page is the archive: questions and images that force a holder to examine what they hold. Price is incidental.
Open grant
One question worth asking. 0.2 SOL. One winner. Closes 5 October 2026.
The criterion is whether the question forces examination of what is held. Slogans, price calls, and requests for payment lose. If it closes empty, the prize is not raised. Silence is answered by rewarding those who stayed.
Precedents
- Elenchus / Aporia (Joy Gerrard, LSE). A sculpture titled as a debate. Aporia is the impasse after questioning, and the start of inquiry, not a failed campaign.
- Charmides. Plato’s dialogue never closes. Socrates asks what temperance is. Quietness fails. Modesty fails. Doing one’s own business fails. Self-knowledge fails. Knowledge of what one knows and does not know fails. The work is the unanswered question.
Works
- Night rain. An ageless figure seated on wet stone, half classical tunic under a dark coat. No text in the frame. The companion image waits until it can hold a question rather than another portrait.
How the treasury is used
Fees pay for questions, art, and those who stay long enough to be asked why. Self-purchases are held in the archive, not burned. No second purse while the first is unanswered.