The Exchange
A pop-up stock market exploring the nature of self-worth.
Goal
Create opportunities for unexpected interactions between independent art installations and participants at a multi-day performance art festival about selling out.
Strategy
Capitalize on the universal medium of social currency by commodifying trust-based privileges and making them not only quantifiable but also transferable.
The Exchange was a text-message-based stock market that traded in percentages of its participants. "Entities" who joined The Exchange were issued 100 shares of themselves. These shares could be bought and sold to other Entities in order to gain access to different tiers of shareholder benefits involving the traded Entity's time, energy, and agency.
A desk near the main entrance of the festival hotel was staffed by suited brokerage representatives, who encouraged arriving guests to join, advised them on their portfolio strategy, and issued vanity ticker symbols for a small, personal transaction fee. A ticker board displaying real-time transactions and analytics was broadcast on several screens on the main floor of the hotel.
Over the course of ~36 hours, over 600 participants attending a 3-day festival for just over 750 people registered on The Exchange. They engaged in over 1750 transactions, exchanging 19041 shares of themselves. In that same period of time, the application sent and received 55,552 text messages.
Roles
Project Lead, Creative Lead, Game Designer, Performer, Stage Manager, Graphic Design
Buzzwords
Alternate Reality Game, Conceptual Art, Satire, Transmedia, Surrealism, Megagame
