Great question. We thought about it. But when we did a cost analysis the real museum came in at about $250 million while the fake museum turned out to be about as expensive as a decent IKEA desk. So we went with fake.

But there’s another reason: in November of 2022 the founders of MONET had a collective freak out session. The beta version of Dall-e (the first visual generative AI platform) came online and our collective reaction was … ho-ly shit.

By 2024 standards the results were a bit dodgy and the test cases that Dall-e encouraged (remember panda bears riding unicorns on moon, anyone?) were silly and pointless. But the repercussions for the visual arts were hard to miss. Nobody knew exactly in what ways, but it was clear that design, illustration, and fine arts would never be the same again.

In the ensuing months, many designers and artists have decided that AI is just a passing fad – the NFTs of 2023 (Or, conversely – that it’ll be the end of known civilization). But we don’t think it’ll be either of those. As the quality of output and fine-grain controls continue to improve at a breakneck pace, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to imagine how AI won’t touch nearly every part of the visual arts (and everything else, for that matter).

And so with the launch of MONET, we are enthusiastically casting our vote. We think AI is almost certainly the most disruptive technology our industry has seen since the personal computer or the internet. And possibly the most exciting creative tool ever invented.

So there you have it; MONET represents our desire to explore this new technology to its fullest. To see what it can do. To test the boundaries of this profound new frontier. And ideally to see how it can help us become better designers and storytellers.

We hope you’ll enjoy the work you see here and will find it equally amusing and thought-provoking. Please contact us if you have any thoughts, questions, or would be interesting in commissioning work, collaborating with us, or just debating with us about AI.

Jeff + J.A.M.