I am pleased to announce that I will be taking part in Bartertown (Trading Post XVI: Mesh & Lace) at the Dumbo Arts Festival on September 27 & 28, 2014. The festival is from 12-6pm both Saturday and Sunday, and Bartertown will be located on Water Street between Washington and Main in Dumbo, Brooklyn.
Bartertown is the brain child of artist Heather Hart. It is an area of the festival filled with booths run by different vendors, much like a street fair or flea market, except no money is allowed to be exchanged. Instead, the customers must trade for the goods and services offered.
My project for Bartertown is called Please Enable Cookies. I will be baking homemade cookies in exchange for personally identifying information, such as a person's date of birth, mother's maiden name, or home address. Each cookie will be priced in points (i.e., 7 points for Salted Mexican Chocolate Chunk, 5 points for Peanut Butter Coconut Curry, 10 points for Brown Butter Rosemary Snickerdoodle. etc.), and each piece of personal information will be worth a certain number of points. The participants can choose what combination of information they are willing to submit in order to meet the price of the cookie(s) that they want.
Digitally, cookies are what websites use to get information about users. My installation, Please Enable Cookies, is intended to highlight the way we use information as currency (whether we know it or not) to acquire things that are simply for entertainment or amusement.
PDF for download: Please Enable Cookies submission form and Terms of Use
** UPDATE: Please Enable Cookies will be back for Barter Town (Trading Post XIII: The People’s Economy) at Brooklyn Museum on October 25, 2014, 1-5 pm.