Time/Bank currency design by Lawrence Weiner, 2011. Photo by Julieta Aranda.
In this episode of Forms of Life, host Nato Thompson speaks with artist and e-flux co-founder Anton Vidokle about alternative economies, the mutability of money and the prospects for a new “.art” internet domain.
Since 2008, Vidokle has been working on Time/Bank, an ongoing initiative that enables groups and individuals to bypass money as a measure of value and instead trade time and skills for anything, including food. Recently he and partner Julieta Aranda set up Time/Food, a temporary eatery that operated on the Time/Bank economic system, allowing visitors to pay for their lunch with time currency earned by helping others in the Time/Bank community. The restaurant offered a changing daily menu of meals prepared using recipes provided by a group of artists who like to cook.
Vidokle’s work has been exhibited in museums and biennials around the world, including the Venice Biennale; the Dakar Biennial; Tate Modern, in London; UCLA’s Hammer Museum; the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston; and MoMA PS1.
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Forms of Life is a monthly podcast hosted by Creative Time’s chief curator, Nato Thompson. Guests are culture makers whose work posits new ways of looking at political realities. By addressing a wide variety of issues—such as alternative economies, calcified political structures and new forms of collective living—or simply by being a thorn in the side of normality, Forms of Life interviews provide an opportunity to think counterintuitively about social conditions faced by people around the world.
Special thanks to The Clocktower Gallery and ARTonAIR.org for their support.
