Currency - Exhibition Identity

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Currency is a mixed-media exhibition, currently on show at the New Media Gallery. In this exhibition, eight artists from around the world with diverse ideas and depictions relating to the perception of value, consider and critique the evolving symbolism in a rapidly changing world of technology. They offer diverse narratives and counter-narratives around a dominant notion of currency. Layered with symbolic references and skilful handling of complex information, these metaphoric works reflect the seductive, volatile and sometimes problematic relationships that develop between currency & value.

The artists in the exhibition measure, critique and interpret currency through references to attention span, decision-making & psychology, corporate structures, historic & corporate symbols, art, luxury goods & design, real estate and economies of labour & exchange. My role was to visually translate and represent the notion of traditional value with modern-day surveillance technology.

Please note: This project involves some speculative design work.

Daniel McKewen's artwork 'Animal Spirits' on show at New Media Gallery

(Image by NMG)

The notes of a luxury fragrance reflects the volatile spikes of the biggest financial crash in history (Flashcrash - a perfume); a social media campaign directs bots to produce a cryptocurrency that tries to restore fair balance in data exchange (Bit-soil Popup tax and hack campaign); a surveillance technology measures the currency of human attention in the art (Value of Art); an ancient, apocalyptic narrative is used to reflect modern anxieties around currency (Out of the Abyss); a piece of ephemeral real estate is purchased with social media currency (Untitled); a psychological phenomenon that affects the buying & selling of securities is rendered monstrous (Animal Spirits).

The exhibition questions the audience about ways to interpret, measure and assign value to objects, landscapes, and economies of exchange. The works give the audience opportunities to reflect on common interpretations of currency and conditions which affect value.