Future of Money Project

During the second term, former Interactive Arts student Austin Houldsworth came into uni to give a talk about a competition that he was helping to run called 'The Future of Money.' The brief was to design a new currency to get rid of hard currency and one example shown was to have electronic money.
The deadline was in 3 weeks, so it wasn't masses of time but I decided to give the project a go, focussing to begin with on the electronic side. I was thinking about how everyone has an iPhone or a Blackberry where they can download apps to play games etc. I began designing a device that had a resemblance to handheld game consoles with a flip up screen and the general idea was to have an electronic debit account and a barcode scanner on the side that would scan items and immediately debit the money from your account. For security reasons, the device is also attached with a fingerprint scanner.

I made a prototype of my idea from clay and then painted it in black latex to give it the protective rubber look. The brief also said that it wanted us to explore the possible consequences of such a dramatic change in currency and wanting to make my submission different from other possible ones I decided to create mine like a dossier from the future. I wanted to have random clippings from newspapers, letters etc that would slowly piece together the story that I am trying to put across. I found this interesting because it was a different way of storytelling, giving me a break from my other projects and it let me be a bit more loose and creative with what I produced.

I got to use a lot more digital work in this than my other projects which are much more craft based. I enjoyed being able to put in the little quirks like making the paper look folded and used or having masking taped corners to make it look like it had been tacked into the folder. I enjoyed this because it was the details that made the piece and I had the chance to try and make my own future.

I was fairly pleased with the final result, if I had more time before the deadline I would have liked to have neatened up my ideas but I knew I had done my best in the time. Although my submission was not shortlisted I did get an email to say that it was close which I thought was a nice thing to be told as I they didn't have to do it.