Oliver Walker – Installation: Bringing the market home

Installation: Bringing the market home
Oliver Walker, Hamilton Gross

23rd November – 12th December
Foyer HKW
Artist Talk Sat. 26th November 3.40PM – 4PM

During Tracing Mobility the operation of some basic lighting within the House of World Cultures building will be handed over to the whims of a financial index. While installed, every time the ‘Africa Dow Jones Titans 50′ index increases in value (live), the lighting circuit will function; every time it falls, it will cease to function.

Bringing the market home establishes a physical connection (or makes an already existing connection more explicit) between the trading actions in finance markets in some parts of the world, and everyday situations in others – with those same seemingly arbitrary shifts. It reverses a tendential direction of influence, with an African share index determining the operation of an aspect of everyday life in a western city.

The project was made with the assistance of Hamilton Gross.