From The Field to the Boardroom Sculpture

Money: we all need it we all want it, and some have more than others. As the clichéd adage says ‘‘money makes the world go round. “ Round like the revolutions of a wheel; round like the shape of the coins I adorned it with. Infinite rows of meticulously stuck down coinage from as far afield as the near middle and Far East, North and South America as well as India, Russia and of course Europe, have etched their symbolism into my mind. Metaphor and symbolism shrouded my vision at times but I am a strong partisan of the belief that artistic interpretation has no right or wrong and must ultimately be left to the viewer. Whether this wheel of fortune serves as a reminder that “money makes the world go round” or that money and the corruption and corporate skulduggery it has created, is dirty like the wheel of those familiar tractors I used to stare at from my first studio’s window, chugging through the mud; I’m not sure. Three years of collecting then painstaking sticking, aligning and cleaning. Not to mention unsticking and scrubbing my own hands. It has been a real labour of love and dedication because every session of artistic attack would take its toll on me physically and emotionally. The monotony of endless alignment as well as the slowness and constant running out of coins was at times torturous. Every time I would run out of coins my conscience would struggle with the frivolity of using my actual money for the creation of this artwork. Having exhausted all foreign coinage and tiny denominations available to me, I would dig into my savings to break down hundreds of pounds into “useless” denominations, and subsequently wince at the self imposed hole in my account. As much as it pained me I submitted myself wholly to the task of its completion. Finally she is finished. In all of her gold, silver and bronze glory yearning to be displayed, seen, objectified and provoke awe inspired murmurs at her beautiful composition and controversy around what she stands for. Certainly an ode to money; both the cyclicity of the global economy and the jingle jangle of loose change in our pocket that once determined the extent of a night out. The cult of money has more subscribers than any religion nowadays. The notion of such things as nationhood that we once thought were of primordial importance now pale in comparison to the significance of the economic / corporate clout and partnerships that underpin them. In a capitalist society economics determines everything. I wanted to create a piece /installation that represents this and challenges the question of value in art. Deciding to purchase a Bitcoin and embed its key into the rubber of the tractor wheel was an integral part of this. Theoretically the price of an artwork is what a buyer and vendor agree on. The authenticity, provenance and history of an artwork as well as the reputation of the artist and the associated parties also influence value. Art can be forged, making authenticity a real question; Bitcoin however cannot and the block chain ledger ensures this. Therefore the purchase and any future sale of this piece will be recorded on the ledger. This lends another dimension of certified authenticity to the work. Conversely the currency market (coins that adorn the wheel) is more tangible and is a key component of our global economy. Trillions of dollars of quantitative easing have not devalued currency based on basic supply and demand economics. Bit coin however is finite. Only a certain number are and will be in circulation making the upside to its current value theoretically uncapped. This piece marries three markets in one sculpture, whilst also symbolising the transition from subsistence farming in the field to capitalism in the boardroom. My Art Installation has multidimensional value: Its intrinsic value, the value of its materials and indeed the fluctuating value of the bit coin as seen by the live ticker projecting the movement of the bit coin market in real time.