At this point in time, the launch post for a blog is daunting. There are so many others out there already, maybe even covering the same territory, that I’m left with the question: why bother? This question is thrown into sharp relief since I’m putting this blog together purportedly so that I can dynamically explore (i.e. with readers) the world of material culture…artifacts…stuff…in a way that is intelligent and (ultimately) a feature of my scholarly career. In lieu of laying out a mission for this blog just yet, however, I’ll move on to the stuff at hand.
money as gift as art
Here you see a picture of 20 KR note from Sweden, folded into what could be a facsimile of a shirt created during the lean years of men’s fashion circa Miami Vice (the TV show). I received this piece from a fella by the name of Hans, in a Stockholm hotel bar near Old Town . He didn’t give it to me, however—I had to buy it. And I had to buy it at a price higher than the exchange rate at that time (Dec., 2002). I’m not bitter about this (though I haggled with him at the time), for it is art, and art adds value. Or does it create value? Or does it reframe the relationship between “object” and “value”? Here I’m at the heart of this post…
How do we value material objects, whether or not they carry the label “art”? Market-oriented perspectives, exchange value, social capital: all of these (and many more) concepts enable us to take different perspectives on the things we find around us all the time. Sometimes there is idiosyncratic value (the stuff in Found magazine, for example), sometimes there is monetary value, and sometimes there is nostalgic or personal affect value. There is historical value, trade value, and just-because-I-have-it value…Are these mutually exclusive categories or conceptualizations of value? They each come with different metrics—often implicit—and are not easily mapped onto each other, which pushes me to think about constellations of value that attach to objects. Circling bits of investment that have distinct yet intersecting trajectories of meaning and communication, through which we navigate material objects in the social world—that’s what I mean by constellations of value. I’ll flesh out the constellation connected to the money shirt.
The inscription…
As you may imagine, there is a story attached to this shirt that is more detailed than the monetary value of the actual note and the place I got it. I was in the hotel bar with my cousin, Tris, having a beer (memory value). We noticed a table holding a four-level pyramid of pint glasses; there were three people sitting around the table, one of whom was Hans. Small talk about the pyramid (which tottered dangerously, yet did not fall over) led to his demonstration of the money shirt craft. Obviously he’d pulled this one out in a bar before, as the performance was smooth (social/cultural capital value). Out of his wallet came the 20 KR note, and within a few minutes (three?) he had turned it into a short sleeve shirt complete with collar and tie. He neither tore nor cut the note. I immediately offered him the USD equivalent, but, alas, it had taken on value (about 5%, if I remember correctly). I bargained just for the sake of it, knowing full well that Hans had indeed inflated the value of the 20 KR note by turning it into something it was not (market value). After I paid, he inscribed it for me. However, he would not teach me how to fold a bill in just such a way that the head/neck of the goose becomes the tie. Instead, he offered that since I owned it, I was entitled to unfold it and figure it out myself. Needless to say, I still do not know how to make a money shirt.
Now it holds value for me, and I can extend that by telling the story (here!), bringing it into class as an example for discussion/critique, putting it up on eBay, or hanging it on my tree every Christmas (which I do). One object, a bunch of values: a constellation that is emergent, not completely mappable yet not inscrutable.