But there is another function of money that is often lost or ignored. Money is also a medium of the imagination.  It is a means by which we come to comprehend our relationships, to ourselves, to other people and to the society of which we are a part.

Money’s influence on the imagination is a widely accepted and much bemoaned fact. A great number of us recognize that money has far too much power over our lives, and over who and what we imagine to be valuable. The recognition that we care about money too much is the theme of a nauseating number of tacky Hollywood films. Almost everyone is also aware that, though money helps us determine and negotiate who and what is valuable in this world, it is, itself, largely worthless.  Banknotes, after all, are little more than government-issued promissory notes which, for more than a century, have not actually been redeemable for “real” wealth (gold or silver in a vault somewhere). Today’s coins are often not worth as much as the metals from which they are forged. And this is to say nothing of the real life of money as it exists in the digital stratosphere, in the chaotic maelstrom of financial markets, populated by monstrous monetary creatures like futures contracts, securitized debts and credit-default swaps.

And the baleful reality, which we all know, is that the world is more in the grips of imaginary wealth than ever before, and that the effects of this are as profound as they are tragic. Citing only the unquestionable virtue of international financial “competitiveness” we have seen world “leaders” utterly fail to reign in the carbon emissions that exacerbate global warming and, hence, catastrophic weather patterns, floods, droughts and desertification. We all known that, for lack of money in some places, children die or suffer needlessly from malnutrition, lack of access to clean drinking water and curable diseases while, at the same time, for no good reason, a global super-elite are so awash in cash they hardly known how to spend it. In each of our own lives, we have felt money’s power over the imagination acutely, whether we have somehow come to measure our own value based on how much we earn or how much we can buy, whether our personal hopes and dreams have had to subordinate themselves to cruel economic necessity, or whether the spectre of debt haunts and torments us.

But it is all too easy to fall into one of two traps. On the one hand, it is tempting to throw up our hands and imagine it has always been thus, that money is “the root of all evil.” It is comforting to believe that nothing can be done above and beyond making sentimental changes to our own personal actions and motivations. Equally tempting is the idea that money itself is not the problem, but that money’s contemporary form (state-backed fiat currencies) is, and so we need to invent new forms of currency that will better reflect our values, or that are better designed so as to avoid the concentration of wealth in the hands of the few.

I agree with neither perspective, but they reveal just how captivating money is to the imagination: it inspires incredible dreams, it justifies terrifying cruelties, it helps cohere imaginative communities and it motivates tremendous activism. But we must look more closely at money if we are to understand and overcome its power. Money has changed a great deal in recent years, thanks to its digitization, but it has always had a very particular form under capitalism.

While this forum does not permit a full elaboration, it is vital to realize that what money is, infact, a means to understand our place as individuals within a wider world we are helping to create and recreate. When we hold money, we are actually holding a ticket that entitles us to purchase a fragment of the world’s wealth, a wealth that we actually help create. When we work, we contribute to the wealth of the world by transforming our time into a commodity; for this we are paid a wage, which in turn, allows us to claim a portion of that wealth, to claim the residue of someone else’s (many other people’s) time and labour: a commodity.

But we do not recognize the commodities we buy as the product of our collective power – we see money as the materialization of our own individual power in the world, and we worship money as if it (rather than the collective “we”) is the producer of the world’s wealth. Money is, in Marcel Mauss’s famous phrase, “the false coin of our own dreams.”

In this sense, money helps us coordinate, share and distribute the wealth of humanity’s collective labour, but of course it does not help us do so based on the values of equality, fairness or sustainability. More than that, because we trust it with such a great power, and because we experience money individually, we fail to recognize that our entire society has increasingly been oriented towards the expansion and intensification of money’s power, rather than towards more human and humane ends. Under the aegis of neoliberal capitalism, “economic growth” has become the cardinal virtue and unquestionable measure of success for individuals, organization and entire nations.

So money is a medium of the imagination, of how we are able to imagine the sublime totality of humanity’s creative power, of the way we are able to imagine our own creative power as individuals. And because it has such a grip on our imagination of who and what is valuable, it orients our actions, as both individuals and collectives (communities, nations, humanity as a whole) towards its own endless and merciless reproduction and expansion.

This is why art that mobilizes money (coins, banknotes, credit cards, etc.) as a medium of aesthetic expression is so important. By bringing money and art into critical proximity, by making money into a material for creativity, it reveals the imaginative work that we are all doing, all the time, to reinforce and reproduce money’s value.  Such work asks us to meditate on the way that money is always already a form of art (and, more cynically, the fact that “art”-as-such has never been truly free of money’s influence).

More than that, these artworks also encourages us to recognize that the affirmation of money’s imaginary value  and very real power is a misrecognition of our collective power. If we did not allow money to monopolize our understanding of our creative potential (and so organize social relations) what other formations and systems might be possible?

I do not believe that money’s power over our lives and our economies will evaporate if we agree to stop believing in it. Money is the earthly avatar of capitalism, a system that is based in the very material exploitation of very real bodies. But so long as we continue to imagine the world, our powers and our responsibilities to our fellow human beings through money (even if it means donating to charity or trying to arrest renegade climate change through monetized measures like “carbon credits”) we will be unable to fully grasp our potential.

What art with money promises is the tantalizing opportunity to imagine social affairs, human cooperation and the meaning of wealth based on non-monetary values. This art, by playing with money’s power, creates new media of the imagination.

Max Haiven is an assistant professor in the Division of Art History and Critical Studies at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, Canada and curator of ReImaginingMoney.net. He is author of Crises of Imagination, Crises of Power: Capitalism, Creativity and the Commons, Cultures of Financialization: Fictitious Capital in Popular Culture and Everyday Life and, with Alex Khasnabish, The Radical Imagination: Social Movement Research in the Age of Austerity

At the opening Dadara held a short talk, telling a bit more about the Art as Money backgrounds of the paintings and drawings.

And the next day saw a money customizing workshop in the gallery.

Dadara is the artist-in-residence of the BE Festival in Birmingham. Their theme this year is money. He designed the festival currency, there’s an exhibition with his Art as Money paintings and drawings, a special Hourtopia performance, and a talk.

Using the words of the BE Festival on their website:

Part shaman, part banker, Dadara’s is an animating, provocative and irreverent presence at the BE FESTIVAL 2014, playfully engineering a collective space of exchange. There are a number of ways to encounter the work: live, online, and in your wallet; at scheduled moments or in fabric of the festival experience itself. You will never look at a piece of art, money or the passing of time in the same way again.

The Exchanghibition Bank Booth

In times when governments have no money for the arts but lots of money for banks, a well travelled bank booth makes its way from the Nevada desert to open for business in Birmingham: the business of serving art, and the art of turning art into money.

Transformoney Tree

As we stumble through crisis, lost on the path of infinite economic growth on a planet of finite resources, you are invited to contribute your banknotes to a cumulative sculpture, transforming their value by creating a beautiful object. The tree casts the true and time-bound worth of money into stark perspective against concepts of natural order and intrinsic value.

Hourtopia

Are we as conscious about spending our time as we are our money? The dread of the watched clock and time wasted is thrown aside in search of those moments when life ticks in harmony with the heartbeat of our soul. Hourtopia offers you the once-in-a-lifetime chance to capture your magic hour and share those priceless hopes and memories with your loved ones. Forever. Dadara will introduce the project and open the main programme of BE FESTIVAL 2014 with an exclusive performance event, One Minute of Time for Yourself.

Karma

An alternative currency is in circulation throughout the festival’s second week. Trade in your grubby and anonymous legal tender for Dadara’s colourful, limited edition, customisable BE FESTIVAL currency, The Karma. Each time a note changes hands challenges our conventional assumptions around spending, reasserting the notion of exchange over mere transaction. The Karma investigates currency’s value in motion, its ability to connect groups and to tell and maintain stories.

Paintings and drawings

Dadara’s background in striking visual design serves to both document a journey through, and develop his own understanding of, an obsession with money as it relates to the artists’ place in the world and the intrinsic value of creative practice.

It was great to stay three weeks (including the rehearsals for the Like 4 Real theatre play) on the island of Terschelling, where Time ticks in a different rhythm than the urban clock, and nature rules…. One day we decided to exchange on the beach. Upon arrival, we realized that it was slowly becoming high-tide, so we had to wait….. We waited and waited for 4 hours for tide to turn into ebb……. And it didn’t even feel like Time wasted……

We also exchanged on the ferry between the Dutch mainland and the island of Terschelling. Eventually we had to secure the bank to the floor because of the hard winds, which started to blow the bank away……. Deep-sea banking was not on our list…..

It seems a lot of people were really happy to see that we now also have female bankers….

But not all our hours are wasted. Sometimes our life is ticking away to the rhythm of the clock, but sometimes life ticks in harmony with the heartbeat of our Soul. Sometimes we create magic. And those timeless hours seem to last forever. Sometimes, forever might even last just one second. But no matter how long forever lasts, there’s always that moment when the clock strikes back and that priceless and timeless moment is gone. And before our very own eyes we see ‘Forever’ disappearing into the big black hole of time gone past.

Our finite planet is suffering from infinite growth. So is it sustainable to just throw away our Time after it has passed? Or should we re-use and re-purpose those magic hours, and keep those moments in time forever?

Hourtopia offers you the once-in-a-lifetime chance to capture your magic hour and share those timeless and priceless moments with your loved one(s). Forever.

It’s an interactive project, which takes place between the participants and us, the artists. If you want to take part in the project, you must have your photo taken and then have it printed on your 5 Euro banknote. This way every banknote becomes part of a growing work of art.We were working out the “Face the Euro” concept during the financial crisis, amidst the growing hysterical predictions of the inevitable collapse of the European Union. All you could hear was incessant talk about banks, debts and percentage. European nations began blaming one another, while their press added fuel to the fire, feeding its provocative headlines to the demotivated citizens. Prejudices, mutual accusations and fear were soaring, terrible scenarios of the coming doom were drawn, and at that moment we felt a desperate need to find something positive, some pivot in that sea of negativity.

What is a man’s role in modern society? What is the role of money? Does money serve me or do I serve money? What can I do for the world around me?

Every day, money passes through our hands. No matter who we are, whatever our origin or religion, whether we are men or women, rich or poor, young or old — money touches and unites all of us and is our most effective means of communication.

Money is impersonal; it can be used for any purpose. It’s up to us to decide how to use it. The actual material on which we print is neutral and has no special value. Its value depends on what we put into it.

The main idea of the project was that despite the economic and political situation, every person if he wants to, can influence the society and its development. If you feel personal responsibility you can make a positive contribution. People who wonder whether or not they should participate in our project, face two problems: they have to part with money and they must have their photo printed on a banknote (a symbol of power) and thereby damage it. Both problems are interesting; they demonstrate how a small piece of paper can influence our conscience and our behavior. Therefore, every participant makes two important moves: he gives away some money and he puts his personality above the money. It may be a trifle, but it has a great symbolic meaning. It helps give value to a banknote through a personal gesture, side by side with other individuals and their different motivations. This way every banknote becomes part of a growing work of art.

The reasons for participation in the project are as different as the participants themselves. The most important thing is that our project leads to communication. We made three stopovers – in Dusseldorf, Cologne, and Heerlen – and involved 269 people from Germany, France, Holland, the USA, Russia, Japan, and other countries in our project. We hope to attract more people, since we’ve decided to take our project to all the countries of the European Economic and Monetary Union and create a piece of art which stands for unity and diversity at the same time.

Face the Euro is a project by Daniel Zakharov and Sebastian Hennig

When you think of it long enough it doesn’t matter how much money you make or have. Eventually we arrive in this world naked and we leave this world naked (metaphorically speaking). What really gives satisfaction in life is to have a positive influence on your surroundings and earn money while doing it.

I belief that everybody that is relatively happy wants to change their surroundings in a positive way.

Knowing yourself is important. If you know yourself you know what is good for your body and mind. But happiness also comes from taking care of your surroundings, in the broadest sense you can think of. Taking care of your surroundings is about you and your partner, your family, friends, the workspace and even the whole world. Making yourself and others happy is what creates true joy.

But we also need money to live. We have to take care of ourselves too. So how can we combine the two? We can do this by having a higher goal than making money. This doesn’t mean that money is dirty! Money is a form of energy and thus essential. However, there is more energy than just money. If making money is the top priority on your list, you may be living in the rat race. We are born as humans and we belong in the human race.

Spread from the book Spiritual Awakening the easy way.

A higher goal than making money

In one sentence the Art of Zen Investing is: having a higher goal than making money. When we pursue a higher goal than making money we will automatically focus on what we truly want in life. By doing what you really like, living your passion, you are helping yourself and at the same time make a contribution to your community. The other way around – having money as the highest goal – has been the reason for a lot of ugly things in our world. Check: would a ship dump its oil in the sea if money weren’t the highest goal? Would an oil company deplete the soil of an African country? Telephone companies that have making money as the highest goal do not put a lot of effort in helping clients because there is no direct link to giving service and making money. There is in the long term but in the short term it is financially optimal to cut down on service costs. This is why we have to wait in line endlessly when we are consulting our telephone company.

One could ask if we would have wars if money weren’t the highest goal. It makes me wonder if I read that in 2012 we spent 1.735 billion US Dollars worldwide on wars while a mere 135 billion is needed to end poverty. My philosophy is that when you strive for a higher goal than making money, you are working on a higher consciousness level. If you have a higher goal in mind, the focus is more on the whole community in stead of our personal lives only. Working on a higher consciousness level brings a range of positive side effects, including but not limited to (and as strange as it may seem), earning more money!

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

Albert Einstein

Finding out what your higher goal is (personal, business wise, and even governmental), is a great exploration to what really brings you joy and happiness. If you like you can join the journey to your higher goal and the philosophy of the Art of Zen Investing.

Thank you for your time and have fun changing the world!!

Tim van der Vliet

Even though I worked on the stock market as a trader and a researcher for 13 years, I am now an author and speaker about “down to earth spirituality”. I have a Masters in Economics and then continued on to become a CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst). About three years ago I changed careers. From the specialist jobs I had in financial markets I became author of down to earth spirituality. Spirituality doesn’t have to be of the ‘woo woo’ sort. It can be fun and relatively simple. It is eventually about one thing in life (or in spirituality), which is joie de vivre, the joy of life. For some people it helps to read. But you don’t have to read spiritual books to experience joie de vivre. In short, it is possible to stand with both feet firmly on the ground and lead a spiritual life too.

Please check the link for more information on the free email course of the Art of Zen Investing, or connect with Twitter or Facebook.

Dadara at TEDx BlackRockCity (Burning Man)

A TEDx talk about money at the Burning Man Festival in the Nevada desert. Burning Man is based on a gift-economy, and money does not exist for the entire week of the festival.

Even though almost everybody in this world uses money every single day, very few people think about what money is, how it works, and how it maybe might work in a different way. How it could be redefined or even changed.

Isn’t money after all just a tool?

Our current form of Money, detached from any tangible asset and only backed by our trust, has seemingly taken on the role of an omnipresent Philosopher’s Stone, magically turning any quality of life into a measurable quantity of bigger or smaller heaps of cash, or rather digits on our computer screen. But not all values and qualities can be converted that easily into a pile of banknotes. After all, isn’t what we really value in life ‘priceless’?

In times when governments don’t want to spend money on art anymore, but spend billions on bailing out banks, Amsterdam artist Dadara started his own bank — the Exchanghibition Bank — which issues banknotes of Zero, Million, and Infinite. The bank has popped up in the main hall of Amsterdam Central Station, The Rijksmuseum, Stedelijk Museum, Occupy, cultural venues, as well as shopping centers, and also performed at Burning Man in the Nevada desert, where customers could get a Zero note in return for filling out a Spiritual Karma Laundering Contract.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

Like Banknote

What are our most important values? Financial values? Or is it something else? Could money ever express our true appreciation of social, moral, or spiritual values as well? Those values can’t be easily quantified or expressed with a click of a button. Even though nowadays it seems everything is just a click away.

Showing gratitude and appreciation has always been an essential part of our human interactions. Since we have allowed social media to hijack and monetize the Like, and our monetary transactions have become increasingly anonymous though it seems to have become more difficult to express those feelings.

We ask stores to gift-wrap the stuff we buy, but don’t really seem to have a way to gift-wrap the money we give in return.

Until now, because now there’s the Like banknote - a tangible token of appreciation which we can add to our payments in order to show our real Like for other people and initiatives.

Because money can not only be used to acquire more material possessions, but can also enable those people and initiatives we Like to keep doing what they Like.

When was the last time you said “Thank You” when someone Liked you on Facebook? Wouldn’t it be great if we could gift-wrap our Likes on social media as well to indicate that we did not just click a button, but truly Liked someone or something? Couldn’t we add value not only to our money, but to our Likes as well?

Perhaps in this way we can begin giving Likes to those we Like 4 Real rather than collecting Likes, as if we collect stamps, in order to impress others.