Museum of Capitalism – New York City
November 9, 2019 § Leave a comment
OCTOBER 30 – DECEMBER 11 2019
Official Opening Thursday, November 7th
Curated by FICTILIS (Andrea Steves & Timothy Furstnau)
My participation is generously supported by Culture Ireland & Faculty of Film, Art & Creative Technologies IADT.
Installation THE MARKET Le Bleu du Ciel, Lyon
October 19, 2017 § 3 Comments
Credit Suisse (Access denied)
Canary Wharf
London England
March 2013 (left)
Anthony, Analyst (negotiation 1.5 years)
The City
London, England
May 2013 (right)
‘In the evolutionary aftermath of the global economic collapse and absence of sustained audio-visual engagement with the central locus of this catastrophic event, the ongoing multi-media transnational project, THE MARKET (2010-), critically addresses the functioning and condition of the global markets and the role of financial capital. It is the continuation of a cycle of long-term projects, beginning in the late 1990s, focused on the predatory context resulting from migrations of global capital.
Bethlehem, Trader (negotiation 1.5 years)
Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX)
Addis Abeba, Ethiopia
September 2012
The Viewing Gallery
Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX)
Addis Abeba, Ethiopia
September, 2012
(Single channel HD digital video, silent, looped 9’’)
James, Operations Manager (negotiation 1 year)
Irish Stock Exchange (ISE)
Dublin, Ireland
April 2012
Transcripts (Dublin, London, Addis Abeba)
‘Having undertaken an extensive process of negotiation, averaging 1.5-2 years, to access strategic sites/individuals, the ethnographically-informed project incorporates photographs, film, soundscape, artifactual material, 3D data visualisation & transcripts of verbal testimony. Taking the sphere out of abstraction & positioning it as a pervasive force central to our lives, themes include algorithmic machinery of financial markets, central innovator of this technology, absorption of crises as normalisation of deviance & long range mapping & consequences of financial activity distanced from citizens & everyday life. Profiles include traders, bankers & financial analysts & documentation from London, Dublin, Frankfurt, Amsterdam & Addis Abeba’
Transcripts (Detail)(Dublin, London, Addis Abeba)
Algorithmic Surrealism 2015
Landscaped Park (International Investment Bank)
Zuidas Global Financial District
Amsterdam, Netherlands
(Single channel HD digital video, colour, sound/voiceover 11’04’’)
The installation includes the film, Algorithmic Surrealism (follow link for excerpt) made in the new financial district of Zuidas (Amsterdam), global centre for algorithmic trading & shadow banking, while the voiceover of the film is adapted from a text by former trader, Brett Scott. Forecasted that there will be no human traders within a decade, the film suggests the hegemony of High Frequency Trading (HFT) and extinction of human reason – including empathy and ethics – will perpetuate the power relations of minority wealth in globalised capitalist systems.
Financial Surrealism/Systemic Risk
Colour A4 image and text – Shadowbanking
Artifacts & Correspondence regarding process to secure access to Deutsche Börse AG, Frankfurt/Eschborn 2012 including Letter requesting access to Deutsche Börse AG
from the Irish Ambassador to Germany, Berlin, Germany, November 2011
(accessd denied)
Framed emails/ Vitrine
Artifacts & Correspondence regarding process to secure access to Deutsche Börse AG, Frankfurt/Eschborn 2012 (accessd denied)
Artifacts & Correspondence regarding process to secure access to Deutsche Börse AG, Frankfurt/Eschborn 2012 (accessd denied)
(detail)
Deutsche Börse II (Acess denied)
Eschborn (near Frankfurt)
Germany
March 2012
The Television Studio
Selected Reports from German Television (2012 – 2013) from Frankfurt Börse (Stock Exchange)
(described in the vernacular by Deutsche Börse AG (owners) as ‘The Television Studio’)
Frankfurt, Germany
Digital Video, Silent, Looped (28 minutes)
Taika, External Relations Associate (negotiation 1.5 years)
Ethiopian Commodity Exchange (ECX)
Addis Abeba, Ethiopia
September 2012
Matthew, Banker (negotiation 2 years)
Canary Wharf
London, England
March 2013
Poster/Text
JP Morgan (formerly Lehman Brothers)(Access denied)
Canary Wharf
London, England
February 2013
‘Titled the Normalisation of Deviance, through the application of an algorithm identifying the words market and/or markets in public speeches by relevant national Ministers of Finance, the data is then transformed to create the installation soundscape. For Le Bleu du Ciel, the algorithmic translation of the former minister, Pierre Moscovici is presented. To date, those of Michael Noonan (Ireland), George Osborne (UK) and Jeroen Dijsselbloem (Netherlands & Eurozone Group President) have also been included in exhibitions in those countries – to represent contemporary financial capital functioning through the conduit of the now financialised nation state”
Financial District, Lyon
(Window, main gallery space)
The installation is part of the year-long programme, Suite-Nouveau Documentaire by Gilles Verneret, Director, Le Bleu du Ciel and part of official programme Resonance de la Biennale de Lyon 2017. Participation has been generously supported by Culture Ireland.
Exhibition from September 28 – November 25, 2017.
The project has been curated by Helen Carey (Director, Firestation Artists’ Studios) and supported by the Arts Council of Ireland, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, NEPN (University of Sunderland, UK), Noorderlicht (Netherlands), Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT), Gallery of Photography, Belfast Exposed & Culture Ireland.
Algorithm & Sound Composition Ken Curran
Full information here.
THE MARKET/ Le Bleu du Ciel / Lyon
September 27, 2017 § 1 Comment
THE MARKET – Installation
Le Bleu du Ciel
12, rue des fantasques, 69001 Lyon
FRANCE
September 28 – November 25
Official programme of Resonance de la Biennale de Lyon 2017.
‘In the evolutionary aftermath of the global economic collapse and absence of sustained audio-visual engagement with the central locus of this catastrophic event, the ongoing multi-media transnational project, THE MARKET (2010-), critically addresses the functioning and condition of the global markets and the role of financial capital. It is the continuation of a cycle of long-term projects, beginning in the late 1990s, focused on the predatory context resulting from migrations of global capital. Having undertaken an extensive process of negotiation, averaging 1.5-2 years, to access strategic sites/individuals, the ethnographically-informed project incorporates photographs, film, soundscape, artifactual material, 3D data visualisation & transcripts of verbal testimony. Taking the sphere out of abstraction & positioning it as a pervasive force central to our lives, themes include algorithmic machinery of financial markets, central innovator of this technology, absorption of crises as normalisation of deviance & long range mapping & consequences of financial activity distanced from citizens & everyday life. Profiles include traders, bankers & financial analysts & documentation from London, Dublin, Frankfurt, Amsterdam & Addis Abeba’
The installation is part of the year-long programme, Suite-Nouveau Documentaire by Gilles Verneret, Director, Le Bleu du Ciel.
Full information/Dossier de Presse available here.
Participation has been generously supported by Culture Ireland
THE MARKET is curated by Helen Carey and has been supported by Arts Council of Ireland, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, NEPN (University of Sunderland, UK), Noorderlicht (Netherlands), Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT), Gallery of Photography (Dublin), Belfast Exposed, Limerick City Gallery of Art & Centre Culturel Irlandais (Paris).
MUSEUM OF CAPITALISM (USA)
June 16, 2017 § Leave a comment
‘A Museum of Capitalism* is opening this June in Oakland, California. The museum will be the first of its kind in the United States remembering the historic era of capitalism, dedicated to “educating future generations about the ideology, history, and legacy of capitalism”. Through multimedia exhibits created by a diverse network of artists, scholars, and ordinary citizens, the museum’s opening exhibition will explore the historical phenomenon of capitalism and its intersections with themes including race, class, and the environment. Representing the collaborative efforts of a multidisciplinary team of curators, historians, artists, and designers, the museum’s inaugural exhibition will feature several multimedia exhibits and experiences created by some of today’s most dynamic artists.
Opening on Saturday, June 17th at 6pm. More information on events and ongoing programming here. The exhibition continues until August 20th, 2017.
The Museum of Capitalism is curated by Andrea Steves & Timothy Furstnau (FICTILIS) and includes work by Alexander Rose, Art for a Democratic Society, Ben Bigelow, Bureau d’Etudes, Chip Lord, Dread Scott, Igor Vamos, Jennifer Dalton, Jenny Odell, Jordan Bennett, Kambui Olujimi, Kate Haug, Marisa Jahn, Mark Curran, Michelle de la Vega, Oliver Ressler, Patricia Reed, Rimini Protokoll, Sharon Daniel, Superflex, Tim Portlock and Valeria Mogilevich amongst others.
The exhibition will also include a library where visitors can browse several collections and learn more about the exhibits, as well as a recreation of an early-21st Century museum gift shop. Artifacts of capitalism, donated and loaned from citizens across the country, will be on display alongside the exhibits.
The accompanying publication by Inventory Press will include work by all the artists and written contributions by Lucy Lippard, TJ Demos and Chantal Mouffe amongst others. Full details here.
*Exhibition includes (extracts from) THE MARKET comprising photographs, transcripts, sculpture. Participation by Mark Curran has been generously supported by Culture Ireland
The Economy of Appearances @ LCGA (Installation)
October 1, 2015 § Leave a comment
In this major exhibition, The Economy of Appearances, Curran draws these projects together for the first time, expanding the enquiry with newly commissioned work completed in Amsterdam. Incorporating photographs, film, sound, artifactual material and testimony, themes include algorithmic machinery of financial markets, as innovator of this technology, absorption of crises as normalisation of deviance, and long range mapping and consequences of financial activity distanced from citizens and everyday life.
Curran filmed in the new financial district of Zuidas on the southern periphery of the Dutch capital – a global centre for algorithmic trading. Adapted from a text by former trader and now financial activist, Brett Scott, which examines High Frequency Trading (HFT) and how the input of human values, are excluded, the voiceover and title of the film are inspired by Scott’s essay, Algorithmic Surrealism. The film suggests the hegemony of HFT and the extinction of human reason or intelligence – human strengths that also include traits such as empathy and ethical behaviour – in Market decisions will both perpetuate and render more extreme the power relations of minority wealth in globalised capitalist systems
Through the application of an algorithm identifying the words “market” and/or “markets” in public speeches by relevant national Ministers of Finance, the data is then transformed to create the installation soundscape. To date, algorithmic translations of Michael Noonan (Ireland), George Osborne (United Kingdom), Pierre Moscovici (France) and Jeroen Dijsselbloem (Netherlands & Eurozone Group President) have been included in exhibitions in those countries. Curran activates the popular graphic representation of such circumstance through a 3D visualisation/virtualisation of the algorithmically-generated soundscape—The Economy Of Appearances—to represent contemporary financial capital functioning through the conduit of the financialised nation state.
Financial Surrealism (WTC)
Zuidas Financial District, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2015
(A4 double-sided colour print)
(text on reverse)
…in the case of the Netherlands, most of the Dutch shadow banking sector…is set-up by corporations for tax purposes, to attract external funding and to facilitate intragroup transactions…the focus of the shadow banking entities located in Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands is the euro area, or even global.
While the relative importance of the euro area shadow banking sector has risen significantly since 2007, it remains smaller than the regulated banking system. Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Ireland are the exception: the shadow banking sector assets in these three countries are substantially larger than those of the regulated banking system, accounting for almost two-thirds of the entire euro area shadow banking system. Credit through non-bank channels can have important advantages and contributes to the financing of the real economy, but can also become a source of systemic risk…
(source Banking Structures Report (2008-2013), European Central Bank, October 2014)
Shadow Banking
Many financial institutions that act like banks are not supervised like banks. The term, shadow bank was coined by U.S. economist Paul McCulley in 2007…because they are not subject to traditional bank regulation…they are in the shadows.
They are characterized by lack of disclosure and information about the value of their assets…opaque governance and ownership structures between banks and shadow banks; little regulatory or supervisory oversight…
Shadows can be frightening because they obscure the shapes and sizes of objects within them. The same is true for shadow banks. Estimating the size of the shadow banking system is particularly difficult because many of its entities do not report to government regulators. The shadow banking system appears to be largest in the United States, but nonbank credit intermediation is present in other countries—and growing. The shadow banking system’s share of total global financial intermediation was about 25 percent in 2009.
(source Finance & Development, International Monetary Fund, June 2013 Vol. 50 No.2)
Portrait (Child) from series Stoneybatter (Dublin) August 1998
Text Helen Carey
Algorithm & Sound Composition: Ken Curran
3D Data Visualisation: Damien Byrne
Film Editor: Lidia Rossner
Film script adapted by Mark Curran from original essay by Brett Scott
Voice: Claudia Schäfer
Thanks to Arts Council Ireland, Noorderlicht Photography, NEPN (University of Sunderland), Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT), Belfast Exposed Photography Gallery, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Gallery of Photography & Culture Ireland
Mark Curran The Economy of Appearances
4 September–30 October 2015
Opening: Thursday, 3 September
Limerick City Gallery of Art
Carnegie Building
Pery Square
Limerick
Ireland
gallery.limerick.ie
Full information here.
The Economy of Appearances @ Limerick City Gallery of Art
September 3, 2015 § Leave a comment
Opening Thursday, 3 September
‘In Mark Curran’s practice, projects unfold over time. (Since the late nineties) Curran has undertaken a cycle of long-term, ethnographically-informed multimedia research projects addressing the predatory context resulting from migrations and flows of global capital…in this major exhibition, The Economy of Appearances, he draws these projects together for the first time, while expanding the enquiry with newly commissioned work completed in Amsterdam. Incorporating photographs, film, sound, artifactual material and testimony, themes include algorithmic machinery of financial markets, innovator of this technology, absorption of crises as normalisation of deviance, and long range mapping and consequences of financial activity distanced from citizens and everyday life…’
Helen Carey
E-Flux announcement & full text here. Continuing until 30 October
Limerick City Gallery of Art
Carnegie Building
Pery Square
Limerick
Ireland
Thanks to Arts Council of Ireland, Noorderlicht (Netherlands), NEPN (University of Sunderland, UK), Institute of Art, Design & Technology (IADT), Belfast Exposed, Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Gallery of Photography & Culture Ireland
Acknowledgments
Algorithm Design & Sound Composition Ken Curran, 3D Data Visualisation Damien Byrne, Editor Lidia Rossner, Voice Claudia Schäfer Script adapted from an original essay by Brett Scott
Image
Algorithmic Surrealism 2015 (digital still)
(Single channel HD digital video, colour, sound/voiceover)
Zuidas Global Financial District, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Installation THE MARKET Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris
February 25, 2014 § Leave a comment
The image below from the installation is titled The Normalisation of Deviance II shows Spectrograms, a moving visual representation of the soundscape of the installation. The soundscape has been generated through the data collated by an algorithm to identify how often the French Minister of Finance, Pierre Moscovici used the word Market or Markets in his public speeches during the year, 2013.
Online reviews of the installation
Time Out Paris (English Version)
The project has been generously supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and the installation in Paris by Culture Ireland.
The Breathing Factory at FORMAT 2013, Derby, UK
March 5, 2013 § Leave a comment
I mean we can keep throwing tax breaks at them but that’s just…that will only go so far…it’s a fool’s economy or a false economy or fool’s paradise or whatever you want to call it…I think we need to be…more cost effective and I don’t think…at the moment we really are…what we have got is, as I said, is…a well-trained, educated, kind of workforce…so that’s in our favour, but, again time will tell whether that’s enough…I don’t see it attracting everybody…I think they’ll always come in for the tax break and that’s probably the main reason they’re here for now…so I’m really not sure where this is going to be in 10-15 years time…you could have a lot of well-educated people walking done to the dole office (unemployment office) and you know…but like, I don’t really know where it’s going…you know…
(Cleanroom Supervisor, Canteen, Hewlett-Packard Ireland, 28 November 2003)
‘Untitled’, Gowning Room, Building 7 11.02 a.m., Monday, November 11th 2003’ (Leixlip, Ireland) 1m x 1cm Ultrachrome Archival Print, Nails, Bullclips
from the project The Breathing Factory (Edition Braus/Belfast Exposed/Gallery of Photography 2006) © Mark Curran
THE BREATHING FACTORY
A project by Mark Curran
Installation of The Breathing Factory, DePaul Art Museum (DPAM), Chicago, 2010 (image by Dominic Fortunato)
Update: short video clip of the installation at FORMAT 13
Installation of The Breathing Factory, FORMAT13, Derby, UK from Mark Curran on Vimeo.
THE MARKET 