Greed, fear and irrational exuberance - the deep play of financial and cultural speculation

Abstract

This thesis is based on a body of work completed between 2001 and 2009, comprising performance/installations that addressed the impacts of global financial speculation and the mechanisms of a free-market economy. Arguably, financial speculation has either driven, or profoundly influenced, political policy and social behaviour ‘from Wall Street to Main Street’ from the corporate boardrooms of developed nations to the informal markets of nations still struggling to come to terms with the demise of classical socialism in the postmodern world. Each 24-hour cycle of global financial markets, comprising millions of transactions, represents not only objectively calculated risk management, but also a spectrum of speculators’ emotions ranging between greed, fear, and ‘irrational exuberance’. The performance/installations included in this thesis address the motivations behind speculative market activity, as well as the interaction between the human and technological processes embedded in the markets. Art and cultural critic Brian Holmes posits this interaction as ‘deep play’, or ‘the aestheticized exploration of the actions and gestures unfolding within a global microstructure’. The microstructure referred to in this thesis is that of the global financial market, its foundations, development and impacts on contemporary society. My exploration will unpack aspects of the history and current manifestations of the free-market economy, and while it is not the intention of this thesis to theorise economics, nor the phenomenon of globalization, certain premises will be addressed as relevant to the projects. In the process, shared borders between the financial market and art practice have inevitably become blurred. The methodological enquiry that underscores this thesis does not reject the free-market economy, nor speculative financial activity. Instead, I have suggested that they might be critiqued by means of cultural intervention. I imply that by direct participation in capital flows, and through exposure to the fears and anxieties bred in the financial market’s domain, the complex elements that have produced, and continue to produce significant impacts on society, might be better understood.