The Economy of Appearances ( 2010-2015)
The Economy of Appearances by Mark Curran elaborates his long-term ethnographically informed transnational project, THE MARKET (2010-) focusing on the functioning and condition of the global markets. Incorporating photographs, film, sound, artifacts and text, themes include the algorithmic machinery of the financial markets, as innovator of this technology, and long-range consequences of financial activity disconnected from the circumstance of citizens and everday life. Profiled sites include London, Dublin, Frankfurt and Addis Abeba. The installation for Data Rush furthers the enquiry to Amsterdam.
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 Brett Scott, a former trader, the film, Algorithmic Surrealism, questions the hegemony of HFT and how the extinction of human reason in Market decisions will perpetuate more extreme power relations of minority wealth in globalised capitalist systems. The Netherlands is also pivotal in the global Shadow Banking system, therefore, the installation soundscape is generated through the transformation of data using an algorithm to identify the application of the words, market’ and/or ‘markets’ from public speeches by the Dutch Minister for Finance, Jeroen Dijsselbloem. The installation incorporates a 3D visualisation of this soundscape – The Economy Of Appearances – representing the functioning of financial capital through the conduit of the nation state. With his project, Curran raises the market from its state of abstraction and demonstrates that the market is a real and intrusive force that is paramount in shaping our lives.
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This installation was commissioned by Noorderlicht in collaboration with the British North East Photography Network (NEPN) at the University of Sunderland. The commission was made possible with the financial support of the NEPN
Acknowledgments:
Algorithm Design & Sound Composition Ken Curran, Data Visualisation Damien Byrne, Film Editor Lidia Rossner, Voice Claudia Schäfer, Collaborator Helen Carey.
