DRACHMA CONJURATION’S WORKSHOP
Athens School of Fine Arts 25-27 may 2011
Come and train to become the moneymakers of tomorrow!
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PRESENTATION
The workshop is part of a global conspiracy on currencies and all exchange values, which started in April 2011 in Hydra. The drachma conjuration is the ghost of a currency system.
From the 25th until the 27th of May, the workshop will be held in the form of 3 ghost ministries, which will work inside the Athens School of Fine Arts under the supervision of NAB - Nikos Arvanitis (Artist, GR/DE), Benoit Durandin (Architect, FR/GR), Georgios Papadopoulos (Economist, GR).
The aim of the workshop is to shape a new system of exchange and its related values. Its goal is to reflect, speculate and contaminate what is commonly called money.
The 3 ghost ministries will be:
Ministry of Light (also called Ministry of Pragmatism) which is in charge of defining the system, its connexions, ways of exchanging and defining values. It is responsible producing organigrams, schemes and all documents needed for the comprehension of the flux, exchanges, etc…
Ministry of Time (also called Ministry of Propaganda or Ministry of Meaning) which is in charge of defining norms, color charts, shapes, all elements related to the new values. It is responsible designing material of propaganda such as posters, symbols, slogans, music, films, games etc…
Ministry of Space (also called Ministry of Materiality or Ministry of Real Estate) which is in charge of defining the architectures and spaces that the new economic system needs and implies, places to store values (if appropriate) and all types of spaces closely related to the new system of exchange, etc…
PROGRAM
First day: Presentation and research of previous existing ghost offices by NAB. Studies of other conspiracy theories ( texts of Popper, but also the Leviathan of Hobbes, Discours de la servitude volontaire de La Boetie, etc…), Utopian movements of the early machinist and capitalist age (Fourier, St Simon, but also Robert Owen, others).
Second day: Participants will split in three groups, each group for one ministry and will start working on their agendas.
Third day: Pursuit of the activities. The participants may change ministries. Ministries will have to collaborate in order to coordinate their views. Pin-up at the end of the day of all drawings, sketches and relevant documents. Each minister will present the work produced to a larger audience.
All participants will be part of the Drachma Conjurations future activities such as publication, exhibition etc.
The official language of the workshop will be the official language of the Empire. Greek slang will be tolerated.
Text: By Nikos Arvanitis and Benoît Durandin.
May 26 -
Drachma Project ASFA Workshop!
Drachma is a research initiative, involving artists and theorists across disciplines, with an interest in the Greek economic reality and the Greek currency as a manifestation of this reality. We are investigating the Drachma as a symbol of economic value, national identity and political power, as they are expressed historically in the imagery of the currency. The iconographic and the symbolic representations of the Drachma, in the concrete syntactic context of notes and coins, provide a specific frame of reference to our analysis of Greece today. Our methodology includes archival research, art, economic theory, political design, psychoanalysis ... Our production will culminate into a symposium, an exhibition, and a publication.
