The central 9ft (2.7m) x 12 ft (3.6m) video projection is an hour-long composite of sixteen hour-long videos of mirrors being engraved to create a drawing of the central view of the entrance hall as a ruin. Each individual video shows the camera sitting on a photograph of the portion of the view being engraved reflected in a mirror which is being engraved from behind. Strong illumination behind the mirror makes the engraved lines appear as glowing lines in the mirror. At the end of the hour when the drawing is complete, all the mirrors shatter.

The two side rooms showed small videos of hour-long drawings of the first two Academy buildings, neither of which are still in existence. At the end of the hour when the central video shatters, the drawings burst into flame and burn up revealing the mirror beneath the paper. Text painted on the walls described the fates of the first two buildings. The walls of the space were aged using a grey wash and white lines painted onto them to create a continuous line drawing in the space.