Stacy Hardy/Dror Eyal :: FrictionFree

::frictionfree::

FRICTION FREE: net.art for the new economy
Dror Eyal and Stacy Hardy

FRICTION FREE® is a live, interactive net.art project developed by Stacy Hardy and Dror Eyal. It is an online Stock Exchange that explores the notion of information as wealth, the Information Economy and calls into question the resulting digital divide.

FRICTION FREE® allows you to buy shares in the "theory stream" of your choice. On registering you will receive a free (albeit virtual) R1,000,000 to buy shares and dividends are paid out based on how well the streams are doing in the real world.

Stocks rise and fall according to the latest data on the number of pages returned by the Google Search Engine (www.google.com). Thus the more popular your field of study becomes amongst Netizens, the more times it'll appear on Google and the more money you'll make!
All theory streams available on the stock exchange are based on papers presented at the 8th annual South African qualitative methods conference "Something for Nothing: Subjectivity and society in the new economy" organised by the Critical Methods Society and to be held in Pretoria on 5 & 6 September 2002.(http://www.criticalmethods.org/p129.mv)
Current investment portfolios on offer include Knowledge Politics, Subjectivities & Identities, Critical Pedagogy, Predatory Culture and Modified Dualism.

The work uses Google Web APIs to generate the stock prices that are dynamic and fluctuating according to changing information on the web. It connects remotely to the Google Web APIs service via the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), an XML-based mechanism for exchanging typed information, queries Google's web search and accesses billions of web documents that are constantly refreshed.
Whether you're anomalous monist, causal functionalist, behaviorist, linguistic psychologist, non-reductive physicalist, poststructuralist, cartesian interactionist dualist, henomenalist, dromologist, deconstructionist or a no-slow pomo purist, FRICTION FREE® has the investment portfolio to suit your risk and return profile.

+ Are you maximising your wealth in the information economy?
+ Are you getting the most out of belonging to the elite virtual class?
+ Have you invested in the critical discourse that suits your financial needs?

GET RICH FAST IN THE INFORMATION ECONOMY NOW

Ever since William Gibson strapped on his mirror shades and waxed lyrical - if somewhat woozily that "cyberspace" was a "consensual hallucination" net theory has descended into an endless elaboration of giddy utopian rhetoric: Cyberspace as a "smooth space" of interstitial nomadic movement and fluid subjectivity. Cyberspace as a mythic arena lucid with theoretical possibilities for economic empowerment.
Born-again McLuhanists envisioned an online community where people could realise control over their consumer choices. A shift from a culture of mass production and mass mediation to one of customised knowledge and demassified engagement, not to mention flexible production for a fast-changing market.
American dreamers like Esther Dyson et al almost creamed their pomo-panties over the possibilities: "In technology, economics, and the politics of nations, wealth - in the form of physical resources - has been losing value and significance. The powers of mind are everywhere ascendant over the brute force of things."
Global villagists saw restrictive trade agreements crumble in favour of a vast informational exchange. Nicholas Negroponte 's let-'em-eat-cake solution to poverty and homelessness was almost beautifully simple: give each homeless person a laptop computer!
Welcome to the information economy, where digital code supplants money as the ultimate medium of exchange. Where the proliferation of simulacra replaces the production of tangible commodities and where high capitalism finally meets a smashing - all be it virtual - demise at the hands of academics armed with kooky code cutters and virtual conferences.
In the information economy, economic inequality has miraculously vanished as the digital divide between wealth and poverty grows - so wide that the "third world" has slipped off the screen and out of our view. With so many bytes of information, no one ever starves in cyberspace.
Homeless? For the small price of a few banner ads Geocities will let you build your homepage for free. Your email address is worth more than your self-esteem. Addiction isn't a social liability; your daily digital fix is the very lifeblood of the virtual class. As big dada Billy Boy Gates likes to say: "Information flow is your very lifeblood." Feel the pulse. drink deep. get rich fast.

ARTIST INFO:
Stacy is a writer and artist currently grappling with the psycho-geography of virtual networks in Cape Town, South Africa.
Dror is a glitchy soul who destroys sounds, code and words. He is a currently
involved in a series of multi-media and net.art projects that use innovative
technology and networks to communicate issues of privacy, security and paranoia in today's media saturated, surveillance society. His work is available online at www.ikissnoise.co.za.