The Stock is Rising
2010
The Stock Is Rising stages a levitation of the Old Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Alte Börse Frankfurt) and is a hommage to the Pentagon-levitation attempted by the American social and political activist Abbie Hoffmann in 1967 as a part of the protests against the Vietnam War
The piece compares the behavior of on the one hand the levitationists outside the building and on the other that of the stock-brokers inside, trading in stocks and bonds that the then current "financial crisis" had proven to be of a mere ficticious value. The Stock is Rising thus debates the different ways in which seemingly irrational elements are negotiated depending on where and by whom it is initiated, but also operates with the notion of collective willpower and how faith creates reality.
The Stock Is Rising was carried out in two steps. The first was a web-based part, launched on August 21, inviting the audience to participate in an online-meditation by contributing mental power over the net. The second had the form of a live event, taking place in front of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Alte Börse) in the afternoon of September 21. Here, the public was invited to join in a collective meditation session, to get the building in the air before 5.35 AM when the trading closed for the day.
The event was livestreamed to The Stock Is Rising-website, and was followed by participants from all over the world. As the project was concluded, it counted contributors from the US, Canada, South Africa, South America, North Korea, Japan, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Israel, Australia, Russia and all over Europe.
The Stock is Rising was produced in collaboration with the Frankfurt Kunsthalle Shirn in connection with the exhibition Playing the City. Other participating artists were Nina Beier, Clarina Bezzola, Julien Bismuth, Clegg & Guttmann, Cosalux, Christoph Faulhaber, For Use/Numen, Swetlana Gerner, Jördis Hille, Christoph von Löw, Josef Loretan, Jan Lotter, Lee Mingwei, Ivan Moudov, Anny und Sibel Öztürk, Paola Pivi, Plural Art Collective, Reactor, Annika Ström, Leonid Tishkov, Gavin Turk, Vanja Vukovic