from Hacker News

Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly (2021)

by NaOH on 9/28/25, 6:46 PM with 18 comments

• by NaOH on 9/28/25, 6:46 PM

  The embedded video in this post is worthwhile, particularly for the visuals of the artwork, but for those who’d prefer an informative (short) article, there’s one in a previous HN submission about this that got no traction back in 2023.

  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38683668

• by palmotea on 10/2/25, 1:32 PM

  > ...and a small book he kept, written primarily in an invented or "asemic" script, meaning it is unreadable or lacking specific semantic content.

  Learned something new: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asemic_writing:

  > ...asemic writing distinguishes itself among traditions of abstract art is in the asemic author's use of gestural constraint, and the retention of physical characteristics of writing such as lines and symbols.

  Basically stuff that looks like writing but actually isn't. Another example is Xu Bing's A Book from the Sky, which is composed of things that look just like Chinese characters to someone who can't read them, but aren't.

• by AftHurrahWinch on 10/2/25, 2:53 PM

  This was found posthumously in a rented garage. Imagine yourself walking in to a windowless room, turning on the lights, and seeing this.

• by kkylin on 10/2/25, 5:43 PM

  Wikipedia has more details on the artist and the art:

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hampton_(artist)#Throne_...

  I was trying to figure out how large this thing was (I found it hard to tell from the picture). And wow -- a life-size throne. Must go next time I'm in DC (if the government isn't shut down :p).

• by dfxm12 on 10/2/25, 3:03 PM

  Considering the religious nature, and the fact that its creator claims to have had a visitation from the divine, it's like TempleOS in a way.

• by mock-possum on 10/2/25, 2:11 PM

  I love outsider art. Love the idea that for some people, it isn’t about the ‘art world’ or about finding a community or an audience… they simply have to go off by themselves somewhere and CREATE

• by frereubu on 10/2/25, 7:30 PM

  Does anyone know how big this is? Difficult to tell from photos on a phone and the listing just says "dimensions variable".