Damon Rich: Red Lines, Death Vows, Foreclosures, Risk Structures

Architectures of Finance from the Great Depression to the Sub-Prime Meltdown

The American preference for traditional residential design masks a frightening reality: across the globe, individual buildings have been retrofitted to serve as interchangeable nodes in a vast abstract structure, held loosely together by legal and political restraints, made to allow the furious circulation of finance capital.

 

Installation View, 2008

 

Predatory Tales, a short video featuring victims of mortgage scams





                                      
                                                              Predatory Tales:  True stories of homebuying scams

An installation of models, photographs, videos, and drawings by artist-designer Damon Rich, Red Lines immerses visitors in a landscape of pulsing capital and liquidated buildings, exploring the relation between finance and architecture.

During a year-long residence at MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Rich, founder of the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP), surveyed the darkening realm of real estate markets: foreclosures, pro-formas, chains of title, block busting, exploding ARMs, and the obscure history of the mortgage.

Damon Rich is an artist and designer. Information from the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies.

Artist Oliver Ressler - Socialism Failed, Capitalism is Bankrupt. What comes Next?

Socialism Failed, Capitalism is Bankrupt. What comes Next? 2010

 

Whilst on a residency in Yerevan as part of the project Eat and Work, Ressler explored political and economic situations in the Republic of Armenia.  The project is a film and a two channel video instillation.  The film was recorded in a market called "Bangladesh" where over 1000 traders try to survive in an economically depressed area, where the traders speak of their pre and post socialist lives.  Where in the past the state ensured their basic needs were met to a the new state where all safety nets have been cut off.

More information on the project and to view the film:  Socialism Failed, Capitalism is Bankrupt. What comes Next?