Value Quest Bourse Logo An electronic allegory of Casino Capitalism
No one is free. The winners must compete, the losers must be exploited

Value Quest Bourse - Art Concept

Authors: Violeta Vojvodic-Balaz and Eduard Balaz (Urtica)
see credits
Published on November 24th, 2011
What brings an interest forever?
Perpetual Bond: The Reform Circuit
The Value Quest Bourse is an invitation to question what is value? The Perpetual Bond serves as a security of values distinguished by a public. It has no maturity date, thus brings an interest forever. Its value flows and re-emerges in time as an ongoing social concern. The bond is based on a promise made by value-holder that he/she takes responsibility for the survival of the identified value. You can add new values in the Value Quest Bourse database, or empower the existing ones. In this process a value of one sort (subjective value) is exchanged for one of another sort (an art object-the bond). This play becomes actuality in the consumption, as Thomas theorem stated “if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”

Is value something intrinsic and purely relative, or we should take more practical approach that the value of a thing is just as much as it will bring. We asked five year old girl what is value and she replied “Mother, Father, Sister, but also Gold”. The value entered at the perpetual bond embodies subjective view upon expectations that are held about the future development of the society. The artistic methodology is based on data sensibility, a cultural phenomena of the Information Age, meaning that information is an expressive-building substance while the artwork is a framework for users’ inputs. Its main features are personalization, involvement and interconnection. What are your values? what social, ethical, ideological, or aesthetic values should be accumulated for the future? Do we really stand for values that we propagate or those are just consumable buzzwords? What happens when one value system disappear and doesn’t leave behind critical mechanism to assess new values or pseudo-values distributed through mass media?

REFERENCES:
  • The Collapse of Drexel Burnham Lambert Group.Inc an investment house that pioneered the use of high-yield “junk bonds” to finance high-risk ventures. https://scripophily.stores.yahoo.net
  • “Implications of Globalization for Poverty Reduction Efforts in Asia and the Pacific” by Linda Low, paper delivered at the Asia and Pacific Forum on Poverty, Manila, February 5-9, 2001
  • “What is Theory? The Theory in Mad Money” by Susan Strange, CSGR Working Paper No, 18/98, December
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  • “Goldman Sachs Urged Bets Against California Bonds It Helped Sell” by Sharona Coutts, ProPublica, and Marc Lifsher and Michael A. Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times. ProPublica, November 11, 2008 https://www.propublica.org/article/goldman-sachs-urged-bets-1109
  • “Privatizacija: Oglodana Srbija”, source: NIN - Tanja Nikolic Djakovic https://www.b92.net/biz
  • “Casino Capitalism: How the Financial Crisis Came About and What Needs to be Done Now” by Hans-Werner Sinn, Oxford University Press, August 2010 https://books.google.com
  • “Social Engine”, Urtica art and media research group, buchs’n’books Kunstlerhaus Buchsenhausen, Innsbruck, 2008 https://urtica.org/artbooks