A little better
2017-2018
Two-channel HD video installation. 4’47’’.
For several months, I followed different cryptocurrency trading and development instant messaging platforms, actively participating in their discussions and generating debates on topics such as trust, value, risk, the meaning of money, the role of central banks, national sovereignty, and more.
I particularly followed and gathered the visual language created for said discussions, permeated with exuberance, irrationality, speculation, and greed, but also imbued with true hopes of a seemingly unattainable financial future, resistant to the oversight of any sovereign state.
The obvious starting point for this project would be the launch of the Bitcoin network in 2009, which had as its background the Financial Global Crisis of 2007–8. However, I decided to trace my research back to 1971, when Richard Nixon announced the end of the gold standard, thus terminating the postwar Bretton Woods system.
Weeks before Nixon terminated the gold standard, he was secretly recorded discussing the economy: “We are just running the chaos a little better”. Almost half a century later, delusional thinking and hope may be fueling the rise of cryptocurrencies. It makes sense to ask if it's sustainable, even rational. Perhaps not, but one could argue that, as it stands today, neither is the world economy.
This work was exhibited at AirSpace Projects, Sydney, Australia (2018); 9th Cairo Video Festival, Cairo, Egypt (2019); ISEA 2020, Montreal, Canada (2020). Download publication and paper.