at the bottom of the pyramid

Text

Inflations and expirations

Akershus Kunstsenter, Lillestrøm, October 2009

”Inflations...” consisted of four loosely connected works/ installations. The two smaller ones were made out of bubble wrap, playing with the recent finance/ stock/ property marked “bubbles”. A larger piece visualized the choice of “core values” by two hundred Norwegian companies/ organizations .

Participation in online poker tournaments generated the last work. This piece, called At the bottom of the pyramid was a pen and ink drawing in 24 parts, covering two walls in the largest room of the gallery.

The drawing depicts my 1000 $ contribution to the price pool of a large live tournament by unsuccessfully trying to qualify online. I played 31 tournaments for 33$ each, progressing to the next level, the (online) finals 7 times, but failed to win these.

Data from the games is translated onto a large graph, employing a decorative language of signs. Is is dechipherable, but to actually read it isn’t easy, it’s quite an information overload, but it describes the ups and downs of my chipstack/ (virtual) capital through each of the 31 tournaments.

The piece visualizes both a flow of information and currency. It continues my explorations of statistics-as-art from the previous project SuperSystematic, but combines it with the visual language from Poker Drawings I and II.