SOME PEOPLE JUST WANT TO SEE THE MARKET CRASH
GERALDINE JUAREZ
• FERNISERING fredag 22. februar 17-22
Science Friction, Skt Hans Gade 26A, kld, DK-2200 København N
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SCIENCE FRICTION in 2013 has for you, dear peoples, waaaaay more friction.
We're now chewing through a generous arts endowment from the goodly nation of
Denmark and its peoples, so our studio for experiments in art and technology in
Nørrebro, Copenhagen will open its doors this year for a series of topical events,
unstable formats and precarious exhibits. We will invite some friends over to make
things, we will invite some things over to make friends, and we invite you over for a
bit of both.
This show marks the first in row of an exhibition series spanning 2013.
This email marks the first announcement email from SciFri HQ: You are receiving it
because you have previously been on the list of one of of the involved Sci Fries. We
will send out information about real good stuff in the months to come, but if you for
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And now, without further ado, we present:
GERALDINE JUAREZ – SOME PEOPLE JUST WANT TO SEE THE MARKET
CRASH
By Maria Gry Bregnbak, curator
“When you think about it, it’s funny how the highly complex mechanisms of the
market are always represented by the simplest possible image: A horizon; a simple
line separating the earth from the sky.”
For her first solo show in Copenhagen, Geraldine Juarez is taking on the stock
market. The well-known zigzag lines representing the movements on stock market
indexes such as the NASDAQ, Dow Jones or the CAC40 are at the core of
Geraldine Juarez’ work for the current exhibition.
“When the stock market crashed in 2008, we were all talking about it even though
no one really understood what they were talking about. In that way, the market is
very esoteric.”
The esoteric quality of the financial market renders it somewhat cultish with its
weight on the world, its interpreters like high priests and its temples on Wall Street.
Geraldine Juarez’ works for the current exhibition play into the cult-like nature of the
stock market by mirroring the fundamental value behind financial transactions and
its symbols, i.e. gold. The gilded 3D prints of various stocks and equity prices
become pieces of pop culture jewellery as does the elegant gold and mirror
representation of the 2010 flash crash – the fastest stock market crash to date,
where the market crashed in seconds only to recover its losses minutes later.
By choosing an adaptation of the phrase “Some men just want to watch the world
burn” from Batman – The Dark Knight for the title of her show, Juarez is not only
playing on the ideological struggle between communism and capitalism portrayed
in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy but also on the perversion behind the market
crashes. The quote’s underlying assumption is that some people take pleasure in
destruction – simply for the excitement of being able to inflict it. Some people play
the market like a high-stakes poker game where corruption, inside trading and
crashes are just part of the game. What happens when these practices are hard
coded into computers using algorithms capable of high frequency trade at the
speed of light?
However, despite these observations it would be a radical simplification of Juarez’
work to describe it merely as a capitalist critique. Juarez work goes beyond
straightforward critique in the sense that it also incorporates and utilizes capitalist
strategies and markets against themselves – often in an attempt to discover
abundances and speak against the scarcity rhetoric promoted by economic
liberalism.
Juarez’ work with groups and networks such as Forays and F.A.T. Lab (Free Art
and Technology Lab) is firmly rooted in a desire to share property – intellectual and
other – and to empower people outside the centres of power. Together, they create
copies, open-source architecture and low-tech modifications of everyday life for
distribution through different strategies in an attempt to oppose copyright, patents
and "law stuff that does not make sense to me". Geraldine Juarez describes herself
as a pupil of the internet, her friends and Eyebeam (Art + Technology Centre),
where she was awarded a fellowship in 2002 and 2006-08.
BIO
Geraldine Juarez (MX/SE) lives and works in Gothenburg and was awarded the
FAIR residency at the Factory of Art and Design in Copenhagen. She is a former
fellow of the Eyebeam Art + Technology Centre in New York (2002-2003, 2006-08).
Her work has been shown internationally at collective exhibitions such as
Interference, Feedback and Other Options in Eyebeam (NYC), Creative Times’
Democracy in America (NYC), Secret Project Robot (NYC), State of the Art: New
York at URBIS Manchester (UK), Signals from the SouthMUU Gallery (Helsinki),
Actions: What you can do with the city at Centre for Canadian Architecture (CA),
G.R.L.| F.A.T. World Summit at CREAM (Japan) Los Impolíticos at Pan Pallazo delle
Arti in Napoli (Italy), Transmediale Berlin: DEEP NORTH(2009) and Futurity Now
with F.A.T. Lab (2010), various Speed Shows and festivals such Piksel,
Futuresonic, Pixelache, Conflux and Transitio.
Of her practice, Geraldine Juarez says: "I use technology and copy culture for
interact with and reflect on the spaces, systems and situations that emerge when
information, property and power collide with everyday life. I am a member of Free
Art and Technology Lab and also collaborate Forays, an assemblage focused on
communication and infrastructure. I also research and blog about the endless
tension between intellectual property law and the culture of copy. I have been
resident artist at inCUBATE in Chicago, Timelab in Belgium and JA.Ca in Brazil
and been one of the recipients of the Makers Muse Award 2011 of the Kindle
Project.”
OPENING HOURS
OPENING friday 22. february 17-22
Science Friction, Skt. Hans Gade 26A, kld, DK-2200 Copenhagen N
Exhibition runs: 22. february - 1. march 2013
Opening hours: Wed - Fri 15-19, Sat - Sun 13-17
www.sciencefriction.dk