What I will do with a billion dollars

I will build a giant Art House in the middle of Manhattan for kids to play in and make art

The house will be modeled after the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library on 5th Avenue, and the Microsoft store on 5th Avenue. The former has a white gleaming interior and tight security.

The latter has computers and Xboxes on the top floor so kids can come in and play.

And why in Manhattan because this is where all the customers are, there are a lot of kids with bad home situations and probably no playrooms whatsoever but violence and just very little hope.

Also, it will allow kids from all backgrounds and ethnic communities to come together and create together. There will be serious security and no bullying will be allowed.

This is going to be at least a seven-floor building. In the basement, there's going to be a sculpture studio. The first floor will be for painting with lots of walls for kids to draw and paint on.

I'm going to hire lots of teachers and instructors to help kids.

The second floor will be painting on paper and canvas and crafting. Maybe more floors of that.

The top floors will be computer rooms and conference rooms where kids will learn how to build beautiful things on the computer, game design, 3D modeling, and animation.

There's not going to be homework ever. The place will be open from dawn until dusk, well I guess late into the evening so there's a place for kids to gather in the evening instead of on the streets.

This is going to be a true Art Palace.

(I know in some countries they have palaces and princes sit on with actual crowns but I am gonna use the rest of the money to ban that practice:)

I'm going to do a mass painting performance

I'm going to have people dressed as living paintings spread out to all neighborhoods and all New Yorkers are going to paint on the streets. More here.

I have a plan for a $200,000 performance but this time around I will spend at least a million dollars compensating the living paintings performers and hiring photographers properly to document the event.

Eventually, all resulting paintings will be exhibited and a giant art party will be held to honor the common creation.

With millions of dollars at my disposal, I will be able to have that event regularly - dispatch living paintings, and have art being done right there on the street in every major city. I will create an app to support the community and scale the performance globally.

I'm going to dispatch robots in space and other planets to create non-destructive works of art like drawings in the sand and the ice of other planets, and robotic performances

The first idea for an installation and performance on Mars belongs to Elon Musk with his Mars Oasis, a project to land a single-plant greenhouse on the planet's surface. In a way, NASA’s robotic craft creates artworks and performances on Mars by leaving tracks and digs along the surface. Starlink satellites perform synchronized dances in the night sky and this is in a way a performance in Space.

Since there’s a precedent already, the robots in space leave all kinds of marks and make the actions technically, all we have to do is make them more meaningful as art projects.

See my proposal to shape Insight lander’s dig on Mars to look like a human hand.