The Future of Money/Labour

The Future of Money / Labour 
With: Deniz Eroğlu, Pilvi Takala, Diego Tonus and Didem Yazıcı
Exhibition: 9 February 2018 – 10 March 2018

Opening: 9 February, 6-10pm
Open: Thu-Fri-Sat 14.00-18.00

In the 3rd episode of Teotwawki, we are focussing on two words that have a connection: money and labour. In our current times we are observing the disappearance of physical money and its slow but steady conversion to an invisible concept. At the same time, labour is also turning into a cognitariat*, where its physical manifestation limits itself to finger and eye movements. What will be the next currency? What will be the next version of work?

In The Future of Money / Labour, Diego Tonus exhibits his new work I Want Everyone’s Money. The work is derived from a conversation with an actual forger, who shared a series of controversial thoughts with the artist related to contemporary systems of definition, transformation and transportation of value in times of crisis. I Want Everyone’s Money is the personal motto of the forger and his business strategy. In an attempt to counter the counterfeiting action of dealing with intellectual properties and appropriation, the motto of the forger has been registered by Tonus as a personal trade secret in the ‘Benelux Office for Intellectual Property’, and here it is shared for the first time with the international audience.

Diego Tonus is currently a resident at the Jan van Eyck Academy. In his artistic practice he focuses on reproduction as a tool of investigation. He questions control systems and power structures by transforming images, objects and collective experiences in order to put them in a new process of thought, and present their underlying structures of codification and normativity.

For this exhibition, Deniz Eroğlu will show the video work McMansion Man. The visitor will meet Thomas H aka Dos Equis aka The Dog Wizard who leads a free spirited, nomadic lifestyle with his canine entourage Bogey, Moschz and Ginger. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, an astounding amount of houses went into foreclosure in Florida. This provided Thomas H with a unique method to secure a roof over his head. He is living a life where the focus lies not on daily expenses and material needs, but rather his well-being and that of his furry friends.

Deniz Eroğlu is a graduate of the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main and an alumnus of the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. His work delves into the lives of outsiders on the margins of society. He shows, in often surprising ways, how such individuals are marginalised, the way they operate and find their position within society. He is fascinated by the multitudinous forms that human lives can assume and reflects on how all of us try to endow our existence with meaning by creating autobiographical narratives.

For The Future of Money / Labour, Pilvi Takala is exhibiting her video work Players, which portrays a community of six poker professionals who live among a larger poker community in Bangkok. Playing poker is more a job than a compulsion for them, but the rules that govern their community follow the logic of the game. They use probability theory, the fundamental theory of poker, to ensure that they treat each other justly, and that everyone contributes equally. The systematic and analytical way these poker players look at everyday life may seem absurd, and their lifestyle is easy to judge, but this shock may be more due to them ignoring their original society than that it relates to the way they have built their own.

Pilvi Takala’s work is mostly based on interventions in different places such as a company, a shopping mall, or the European Parliament. The focus often lies on certain constructions, boundaries and limits of a social group.

To The Future of Money/ Labour Didem Yazıcı will contribute an essay, inspired by works of the artists. Didem Yazıcı is a curator and writer based in Germany. She holds a MA in Curatorial and Critical Studies, and is currently a Curator Assistant at Badischer Kunstverein in Karlshure in Germany.

Teotwawki: [ti.ɑt.wɑk.i] is an acronym for “The End of the World as We Know It”. It stands for the potential occurrence of a new and unexpected situation where daily life might suddenly shift. Civilisation, urban life, spoken and unspoken rules of society may change and people may need to develop new skills in order to survive. Let us think about predictions, forecasts and prophecies on various themes in the future. We will use the Teotwawki as a tool to dive into the intentions, hopes, expectations and plans of each individual and community.

Corridor Project Space is an independent and interdisciplinary contemporary art initiative in Amsterdam with indoor and outdoor exhibition spaces. They believe in the importance of experimental art practices that focuses on the creation of new content that is off the grid from the institutional and commercial circles. Corridor Project Space is run by Suzan Kalle & Suat Öğüt.

*Cognitariat is the social corporeality of cognitive labour. But the social existence of cognitive workers cannot be reduced to intelligence: in their existential concreteness, the cognitarians are also body, in other words nerves that stiffen in the constant strain of attention, eyes that get tired staring at a screen, F. Berardi (2005).

Diego Tonus’s work is kindly supported by Jan van Eyck Academy.
The Future of Money/ Labour is supported by Het Mondriaan Fonds, Gemeente Amsterdam stadsdeel Oost.