Press

Burn Your Money is a participatory web artwork by Keenen J. Thompson: a cash machine that pays out into a fire.

Download all images13 JPEGs and a fact sheet · 5.6 MB

The work

A drawn cash machine stands behind a bonfire. A visitor chooses a sum on its screen, from $1 to $10,000, signs the ledger with a name or stays Anonymous, and pays for real. The machine counts the sum out in notes and lets them fall into the fire, where they char and fall away as ash.

It pays out one burn at a time, and everyone on the site watches the same one as it happens. What stays is a line in a public ledger: an amount, and a name. Watching is free.

An ATM usually gives you something to take away. This one asks what makes it worth paying to watch something disappear.

Facts

Title
Burn Your Money
Artist
Keenen J. Thompson
Year
2026
Medium
Participatory web artwork: live payments, a real-time drawn scene, a public ledger
Where
burnyour.money, online and ongoing
Carbon
A tenth of every burn pays for permanent carbon removal, through Stripe Climate
Made with
JavaScript, canvas and WebGL in the browser; Cloudflare Workers and Durable Objects; Stripe

Film

Silent, 40 seconds. The machine and its fire in a white room. $100 is counted out and one note drops into the fire and burns. The lights go down until only the fire lights the room. $10,000 is counted out: twelve notes fall one by one, then a hundred come off the back of the stack and burn together. It ends on the line: One burn at a time, watched live, entered in a public ledger.

Silent, H.264. On the site, the machine and the fire have their own sound.

Images

$10,000 going into the fire, lights off: twelve notes, then a hundred in a cascade.
01 $10,000 going into the fire, lights off: twelve notes, then a hundred in a cascade.3840 × 2160 · JPEG · 501 KB · Download image 01
A $100 note in the fire, lights on.
02 A $100 note in the fire, lights on.3840 × 2160 · JPEG · 418 KB · Download image 02
$1,000 leaving the slot, lights off.
03 $1,000 leaving the slot, lights off.3840 × 2160 · JPEG · 429 KB · Download image 03
The machine, waiting. Lights on.
04 The machine, waiting. Lights on.3840 × 2160 · JPEG · 427 KB · Download image 04
The machine, waiting. Lights off.
05 The machine, waiting. Lights off.3840 × 2160 · JPEG · 424 KB · Download image 05
The screen: How much to burn?
06 The screen: How much to burn?3840 × 2160 · JPEG · 548 KB · Download image 06
The screen: Confirm. $1,000, ten notes.
07 The screen: Confirm. $1,000, ten notes.3840 × 2160 · JPEG · 465 KB · Download image 07
$1,000, lights off. Portrait.
08 $1,000, lights off. Portrait.2160 × 3840 · JPEG · 789 KB · Download image 08
Detail: a $100 note in the fire.
09 Detail: a $100 note in the fire.2000 × 1250 · JPEG · 234 KB · Download image 09
Detail: the $10,000 cascade.
10 Detail: the $10,000 cascade.2000 × 1250 · JPEG · 310 KB · Download image 10
The site on a desktop.
11 The site on a desktop.3840 × 2160 · JPEG · 422 KB · Download image 11
The site on a phone.
12 The site on a phone.1179 × 2556 · JPEG · 293 KB · Download image 12
On a phone: choosing a sum.
13 On a phone: choosing a sum.1179 × 2556 · JPEG · 375 KB · Download image 13

Credits

Images and film may be used to cover the work, credited Keenen J. Thompson, Burn Your Money, 2026, and without altering the notes’ prop overprints.

Fire footage by Sayakulov (Pixabay). Stone, bark and ground textures from Poly Haven (CC0). Note artwork from US notes via Wikimedia Commons (public domain), overprinted as props. Set in Bodoni Moda, Inter, IBM Plex Mono and VT323.

Contact

For interviews and enquiries: keenen.me