Transactional-Arts
Art as the Exchange of Values and Conversion of Capital
We introduce Transactional Arts as art forms, where some sort of value is exchanged as part of the work. Artists not only reflect, but apply economic principles and interactions become transactions.
The notion of value, the participating agents, as well as the contexts may vary. The transactions can involve not only economic and monetary capital, but also social, cultural, symbolic or other forms of capital.
The internet seems to facilitate this kind of art and we observe that many new media works have actually transactional features.
One may say, transactional arts explore the conversions of the various forms of capital into each other. Buying and selling may become means of self-expression, marketplaces are created as a forms of art, mesh-ups may resemble online businesses, commissioning and division of labor become constituents of the artwork, personal finances as well as the financial markets are artistically reflected.
Most importantly, in transactional arts incentives become aesthetic material and artists facilitate or participate in all sorts of deal-making.
Any leadership involves some sort of creativity. Strategic creativity, dominant in the domains of business and policy, and artistic creativity may have more in common than the members of the two domains normally think.
We consider transactional arts as a platform to experimentally explore current issues of our societies and new forms of social contracts. With the exposure to transactional arts and related ideas, we may train our skills for creative deal-making, potentially relevant to all domains of society.
The term of Transactional Arts was first introduced by Daniela Alina Plewe in 2008. A short paper on the main ideas was finalist at the International Villem Flusser Theory Award at the Transmediale 2010, Berlin. On this website you will find information about this form of art. The picture on the upper left shows the NY Stock Exchange in the 1920ties.
Intro Slideshow
A list of the "Characteristics of Transactional Arts" and texts to download with detailed discussions of the art works can be found under the link Summary. Under Gallery you find a list of selected artists and works by Daniela Alina Plewe.
