prosthetic knowledge
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In Sweden, cash is king no more
Interesting article on the diminishing presence of physical cash in the country of Sweden. Despite some confusions and issue it can cause, it is interesting to note the drop in crime:
In most Swedish cities, public buses don’t accept cash; tickets are prepaid or purchased with a cell phone text message. A small but growing number of businesses only take cards, and some bank offices — which make money on electronic transactions — have stopped handling cash altogether …
… Bills and coins represent only 3 percent of Sweden’s economy, compared to an average of 9 percent in the eurozone and 7 percent in the U.S., according to the Bank for International Settlements, an umbrella organization for the world’s central banks.
Three percent is still too much if you ask Ulvaeus. A cashless society may seem like an odd cause for someone who made a fortune on “Money, Money, Money” and other ABBA hits, but for Ulvaeus it’s a matter of security.
After his son was robbed for the third time he started advocating a faster transition to a fully digital economy, if only to make life harder for thieves.
“If there were no cash, what would they do?” says Ulvaeus, 66.
The Swedish Bankers’ Association says the shrinkage of the cash economy is already making an impact in crime statistics.
The number of bank robberies in Sweden plunged from 110 in 2008 to 16 in 2011 — the lowest level since it started keeping records 30 years ago. It says robberies of security transports are also down.
Interesting read as a whole, which you can here
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The 15 Richest Living Artists
Complex Magazine has compiled a list of the richest artists living today. The full list is:
- Damien Hirst – 1 Billion USD
- Jeff Koons – 500 Million USD
- Jasper Johns – 300 Million USD
- David Choe – 200 Million USD
- Andre Vicari – 142 Million USD
- Takashi Murakami – 100 Million USD
- Anish Kapoor – 85 Million USD
- Antony Gormley – 50 Million USD
- Gerhard Richter – 40 Million USD
- David Hockney – 40 Million USD
- Cindy Sherman – 35 Million USD
- Richard Prince – 30 Million USD
- Andreas Gursky – 30 Million USD
- Chuck Close – 25 Million USD
- Georg Baselitz – 25 Million USD
You can read the background about the values of each artist at Complex here
Number one probably isn’t a surprise (more later), but number 4 on the list, David Choe [bottom picture], is an interesting (and very recent) addition. Why? Facebook.
From The Washington Post:
One of the most interesting stories to come out of the Facebook IPO windfall is that of David Choe, the scrappy street artist who was given the choice of cash or stock for the murals he created in the company’s first headquarters.
He wisely chose stock — despite believing that Facebook was “ridiculous,” according to the New York Times — and now, when public trading begins later this year, his stock will be valued at about $200 million.
Damien Hirst, on the other hand, is no surprise to be at the top in my opinion, becoming a Master in the Business of Art and Art of Business (I heard a rumour about his famous diamond clad piece For The Love Of God [top picture with artist] was a clever tax avoidance scheme as artist’s materials, all £50 millions worth of diamonds, can be claimed back). That isn’t to dismiss Hirst’s intelligence (I genuinely think he has a great mind for ideas), although flooding the art market with manufactured Spot Paintings is taking Brand Hirst a little too far …
While on the subject of Hirst, it’s worth seeing (if you haven’t already) Hennessy Youngman’s Art Thoughtz on him in the video embedded below (and yes, it points out the importance of money, in the artist’s own words):
Related: Damien Hirst talks about Spot Paintings in a video interview for Nowness Magazine.
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by artist Patrick Ramirez, who also has a tumblr
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Handmade Money (via The Ministry of Type)
Xavi García is a student at Central St. Martins, and recently produced this banknote-inspired piece, which I find quite beautiful. It’s entirely hand-drawn and has an impressive array of security features: watermarks, UV-responsive inks and see-through images — the attention to detail here is absolutely perfect. There’s a few images here, but go and look at Xavi’s site for more.
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Visualizing The Flow Of Money (via PSFK)
Christian Thiemann and Daniel Grady of the Northwestern University have been mapping migration patterns across America using the flow of dollar bills in the country. They used the data from Where’s George, a site where entering a dollar bill’s serial number can track its journey as other people spend it across the country.
The researchers demonstrated their project through a video which shows bills stretching out from county to county and showing interesting patterns.
[via VisualComplexity]
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DAN the MAN by studioJOHO
Animation - 16 bit pixel hero saves the princess, and gets more than what he bargains for ….
Brought to you by www.studiojoho.com email info@studiojoho.com
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(via thepublics)
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Won Park – The Master of Origami Paper Folding
Origami is the traditional Japanese art of paper folding. The goal of this art is to create a representation of an object using geometric folds and crease patterns preferably without the use of gluing or cutting the paper, and using only one piece of paper.
Won Park is the master of Origami. He is also called the “money folder”, a practitioner of origami whose canvas is the United States One Dollar Bill. Bending, twisting, and folding, Won Park creates life-like shapes inspired by objects living and not– both in stunning detail.
Check the article out here for other fantastic examples
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Guilloches 
Patterns created manually which can be found on bank notes.
