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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
MACHT GESCHENKE: DAS KAPITAL
Christin Lahr
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Since May 31, 2009, I have been transferring one cent a day to the German Federal Ministry of Finance, thus helping to counter the growing mountain of debt in homeopathic doses. In the „reason for payment“ field, I always write 108 characters from _Capital: A Critique of Political Economy_ by Marx. Bit by bit, the entire text of the book will be transferred into the state's central account via online banking. The transmission of the roughly 15,709 cents and 1,696,500 characters will take about 43 years. The increase in value of the capital investment is not even included, nor are the required labor and lifetime or the added value through cultural and symbolic capital calculated into this. Due to the exponential effects of interest and compound interest, my donation will be able to pay off the national debt of 31 May 2009, 1,746,599,197,210 Euro, within 300 years.
CAPITAL, which inscribes itself irrevocably into accounts and archives, is a donation to the entire people, entered into the state budget, administered by the currently elected representatives, safely stored at the Bundesbank. Each of the money transfers is documented by a screenshot, printed out once, signed, and given away to individual citizens. In “over-subscriptions” on translucent paper, I cross out character by character and thus produce an unreadable notation of “Capital”, consisting of counting marks and numerals.
The work counteracts the ruling political economy and senseless, degrading bureaucratism with the gesture of giving, and poses the question of meaning. The system sees itself in a mirror. Once a day, the micro-donations upset the state’s balance sheet. They triggers a sustained debate on values that produces continuous reflections and echoes.
During an exhibition I work at a capital desk, taking over a director´s chair, exposing bureaucratic structures, delivering an illustrative insight into the cultivation of capital and performing: MACHT GESCHENKE: THE MAKING OF CAPITAL.
Links: http://www.macht-geschenke.de/
CAPITAL, which inscribes itself irrevocably into accounts and archives, is a donation to the entire people, entered into the state budget, administered by the currently elected representatives, safely stored at the Bundesbank. Each of the money transfers is documented by a screenshot, printed out once, signed, and given away to individual citizens. In “over-subscriptions” on translucent paper, I cross out character by character and thus produce an unreadable notation of “Capital”, consisting of counting marks and numerals.
The work counteracts the ruling political economy and senseless, degrading bureaucratism with the gesture of giving, and poses the question of meaning. The system sees itself in a mirror. Once a day, the micro-donations upset the state’s balance sheet. They triggers a sustained debate on values that produces continuous reflections and echoes.
During an exhibition I work at a capital desk, taking over a director´s chair, exposing bureaucratic structures, delivering an illustrative insight into the cultivation of capital and performing: MACHT GESCHENKE: THE MAKING OF CAPITAL.
Links: http://www.macht-geschenke.de/
Christin Lahr (DE) was born in 1965. She lives and works as an artist, curator and professor of media art in Berlin and Leipzig. Since finishing her studies at the Berlin University of the Arts, she has received numerous scholarships and awards, as well as exhibited at home and abroad. She has participated in “Kunst-am-Bau” (art on architecture) competitions as well as curated shows. Since 1994 she has lectured and taught at different institutions and universities. Since 2001, she is a professor of media art at the Hochschule fur Grafik und Buchkunst (Academy for Visual Arts) in Leipzig.