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Latest Show 8-11th October 2008 at Shunt, London Bridge.SE1

Bureau de Change presents 'Wall Street'

Contributors: Steve Ounonian Yair Meshoulam, Kiddie Big, & Shunt helpers on each night.

Relevant web links: http://www.yes-crisis.com/, http://www.shunt.co.uk/

This installation and performance took place during a period of massive global financial turbulence. London, being a centre of world commerce, was gripped by a sense of panic, and although life seemed to be going on as normal in many ways, the signs on the newspaper billboards and the constant news media coverage pointed to something big going on in the financial centre of America, Wall Street, and due to the nature of global commerce, therefore the world.

Although the idea of printing fictional bank notes and having a huge money blowing box had been in development beforehand, the idea of pasting some bills to the walls of the room, the title of the show, the built structure with large angled uplights, and the movement of blown air with giant fans and a hand held leaf blower, all fell into place during the making of the installation. Naturally the piece became a metaphor about the turbulence of the financial world and an exploration about the idea of value. Hopefully not in a preachy Marxist way, but more as a place to play in and an idea to play with.

Once the show was up and running, people approaching the piece had to decide if they wanted to part with a pound coin in order to enter the room, and try to grab as many floating notes as they could. We printed some of the notes, some were usable currency. People wanted to know if the money was real. Some just wanted to play in it like a fairground ride or an audition for a TV programme ‘The Crystal Maze’. Two performers dressed in a stage like formal evening wear brought them into the space, blew the money around and counted down twenty seconds, photographs of the frenzied activity were also taken with a flash, while three video cameras transmitted images to a huge screen over the bar. A dream sequence was being enacted. On leaving the space, many searched through their stash looking for the ‘real’ money. Others seemed to be keeping the fake money as real art – that would have value as an aesthetic object or as a resellable collectable – others just as a souvenir of the fairground ride. Some just dropped the pieces of printed paper on to the floor as litter. Sceptics and the shy ones who didn’t want to go in, fingered the notes blown out of the space, and wondered if they could take one for free anyway.

Interestingly, the owners of the space at first didn’t like wallpaper preparation primer being painted on some of their bare brick surface because it would interfere with the stylistic uniformity of the venue. After reassurances that we would remove it and restore it to its original state – they let us continue. Just as well, because, the adhesive on its own would not have held the notes on the dusty brick surface once the wind machines were blowing. In the end the owners liked the effect so much, they wanted to keep the collaged notes up as decoration for the room. So what would have been temporary installation and ephemeral without value, transformed into an art object or rare wallcovering. Possibly a permanent paying attraction, a money machine, or a reason to go for a drink there. The red room became the money room.

Each evening came to a head with the rapping performance. A mixture of deranged T.V. evangelist and hip hop poetry. The audience seemed to be receptive to the high energy, but when the content got slow and serious, they started chatting among themselves. It felt as if the financial crisis was too much to bear when you suddenly started talking about what it really meant.

This project threw up lots of questions to do with the current situation. As the fall of the Berlin Wall signalled the end of the belief in planned economies, was the credit crunch of Wall Street signalling the end of the belief in an unplanned economy ? The ‘Wall Street’ show at Shunt played with the idea of value, a bureau de change, where a real pound could be exchanged for a real experience with some real and unreal currency. The arty party club atmosphere, and the proximity of the installation near to the bar made the zone approachable. It would be interesting to see the work in another context – in an art fair or in an airport next to a real bureau de change.