Currency Concept Design; Warhols: A Currency Based on Obscurity and Fame

Symposium:

• ISEA2015: 21st International Symposium on Electronic Art

• Lenara Verle
• Ilan Katin

• Workshop Statement

  In this workshop, the participants will learn how different goals (ecological, social, geographical, etc..) can be translated into currency design. They will then create several versions of the Warhols currency, each with different characteristics depending on the goals they decide to aim for. The Warhols will be fictional currencies inspired on the inverse of fame, representing obscurity as something valuable.

  To get acquainted with various currency designs and how these influence the way money is used, we will play a board game that draws inspiration from real historical examples of alternative currencies from the past and present (when we mention design, this doesn’t refer to the visual look of the currency, but to the rules and mechanisms by which it is created, given value and exchanged in the economy).

  The idea is to test the Warhols currency by setting up a special marketplace during ISEA. The conference attendants are entitled to receive an amount of different versions of Warhols and can use them to buy and exchange items in this market. The performance of each currency version will be then measured and displayed in real-time graphs. Duration: Whole Day. coinspiration.org/warhols

Category:

• Workshop