Mind the gap

SUPERFLEX: Today we don’t use the word dollars
ANZ Bank, 312 Karangahape Road
One Day Sculpture Project, commissioned by ARTSPACE
27 May 2009

Georges Perec, the great French writer of the seventies and co-founder of OULIPO (an influential experimental society of European scientists, mathematicians and artists) once wrote a detective novel entirely without using the letter ‘e’. He was an innovative intellectual who loved to work within restrictions. Another of his novels (Life: a User’s Manual) has a chapter sequence organised like a knight making L-shaped leaps around a chessboard, where each square is a room in a boarding-house. Such artists adore prohibitions. They relish creating difficulties for themselves, and for others.

So what if a group of artists specifically forbade bank tellers to say the word ‘dollars’ during their daily transactions with customers or other banks?

It sounds sadistic doesn’t it? Except the ANZ Bank staff I spoke to in Newton, on the receiving end of this particularly mischievous behaviour modification, were totally non-phased. Didn’t worry them a bit. Loved to have a diverting and entertaining challenge over what turned out to be a pretty quiet day anyhow. They even put balloons up. Made it a party game.

In a contract drawn up with the Danish art trio, SUPERFLEX, the bank staff agreed to use other words instead. If they forgot, they were fined $1 for each infringement. This embargo affected four tellers, the manager and a few other admin staff, plus the receptionist.

The funny thing, in my view, is that the contract was a bit vague. The staff could if they wished, have said ‘bucks’, or ‘greenbacks’. Even had a drawn $ sign on a pad, as one person did. I would have expected them to use words like ‘cash’, ‘revenue’, ‘monies’, or ‘funds’.

In fact most managed happily to count out notes without saying the dreaded D-word, or paused seemingly absent-mindedly in mid sentence leaving an aural gap. One even just said ‘beep’ if it were a swear word. Wonderful! (Ever heard that 1965 Bob Dylan line: Money doesn’t talk, it swears?).

That is exactly SUPERFLEX’s point: they are showcasing an all pervading fiscal obsession that corrupts our global culture, an acquisitive drive that goes beyond the commonsense necessities for survival or human contentment. Some people and organisations are forever greedy – no matter how damaging the cost is to others or the planet. This artwork makes a game out of mocking a mindset so ubiquitous it has become invisible. It throws out the challenge that maybe there are other ways of looking at things.

In the morning business was subdued, but in the afternoon things got livelier. Curious artists called in partially because of the bank’s location – very close to ARTSPACE, MIC, Ivan Anthony and Room. Some tellers attracted very few art buffs while others were like lamps attracting moths – who just zeroed in to try and trip them.

In my visit I was amazed how gracious everybody was and how undisruptive the prohibition turned out to be. I’m starting to wonder if even banning all synonyms would have had any impact. It is a bit like strangers who have no common language meeting for the first time. Because humans are innately inventive, if there are predetermined assumptions of purpose, communication is effortless.

Connecting to the 'Real' World

SUPERFLEX: If value then copy.
ARTSPACE
23 October - 22 November 2008

SUPERFLEX is one of those politically motivated art groups that kicks into motion certain processes that function in the zone between the ‘art world’ and ‘life world’. This is exemplified by the concept of the littoral, a term not linked to them specifically but which nonetheless is related to their practice. (It is discussed and promoted by theoreticians and artists like Bruce Barber, Grant Kester and Ian Hunter.) However the littoral is originally a late seventies concept that is regional in focus. Contemporary art collectives like SUPERFLEX on the other hand are resolutely global in aspirations, and comparatively less altruistic and more anarchistic. They mix a wild nihilism into the commercialism of their aims.

Keen to have a palpably subversive influence in a capitalism dominated world, to intercede within it economically (though not solely on behalf of economically disadvantaged communities as in littoral), the Danish group have come on their second visit to New Zealand, this time for a show in Auckland. (The first was to do a Govett-Brewster project with Greg Burke.)

Their ARTSPACE display involves two projects that explore copyright issues, and are anti–monopoly and anti-private ownership. There is also a third component which promotes the other two by enabling the screening onto t-shirts the slogan (in Māori or in English) that is the title of the show.

FREE BEER presents the local manufacture of a beer that is brewed using a recipe circulated by SUPERFLEX, and modified as a local variation (Version 4.1) with its own uniquely coloured label. In readiness for the closing party, Auckland artist Simon Cuming is making a new variation (Version 4.2) that will be available then. Most of the profits will go to ARTSPACE.

The other project, COPY LIGHT, is more humorous: the photographing of famous brands of lampshades, and the duplication of those images so the photos can be positioned on cubes to become new ‘box’ lampshades. Though the gallery blurb says that the borders between originals and their copies are being tested this is not really the case. The new lampshades would never be mistaken for their source originals, even if legally the process is not permitted.

This is a clever exhibition that deals conceptually with ‘ownership’ in an unusually forthright manner. Since Napster became popular though, such themes are hardly revelatory. Good to ponder over nonetheless. Especially if you are thirsty and have two dollars of loose change in your pocket.