About idonthaveyourmarbles

Output
Title	idonthaveyourmarbles
Type of output and brief description	An international ongoing collaborative project operating within a pre-existing online economic framework (ebay), in which artefacts of questionable value are available for viewing / auction 10 days a month.
Your Contribution	Artist and Co-curator
Repository ID	1743	Publication date (if output is forthcoming)	Ongoing since September 2010
Evaluation	Significance: (100 words) http://shop.ebay.co.uk/idonthaveyourmarbles/m.html This project is available to a global audience, and is being implemented simultaneously from different sides of the world (UK and Korea). It has made over 40 sales to date in Europe and America. An invite is sent to an extensive mailing list every month. In March 2010 idonthaveyourmarbles was staged as a sychronised online / offline 3 hour event, with the audience invited to bid via the virtual at the same time as being able to view the actual artefacts. This was an event for Fordham Gallery at Maddox Arts, London, curated by Man Somerlinck. An online / offline exhibition with documentation of sold items is currently in development (maybe in a library); as is a publication.
	Originality: (100 words) This project questions the importance of a priori knowledge for the experience of art; how art can become less dependent on structures that are so determining in terms of content, understanding and interpretation. Images of items engage with aesthetics beyond requirements for ebay. Items are placed in categories to which they relate but not directly, enabling them to rupture their own definition; a strategy further articulated through the descriptions of objects for sale. This is a collaborative project to which other artists are regularly invited to contribute artefacts and descriptions consistent with the project.
	Rigour: (100 words) This work is exploring ideas of value and exchange, and the circulation and commodification of dematerialised labour. It’s concerned with the intersection of: found / appropriated economic platforms that provide space for both amateur and professional; the questionable value of objects; the viewer as actual / potential buyer required to invest something besides money to find worth. A listing entitled “CLOSED” is available for purchase outside the 10 day period and invites interested parties to be added to the monthly mailing list. References: Claes Oldenburg’s “The Store”; Rob Pruitt’s Flea Markets; Tracy Emin, Sarah Lucas, “The Shop”; Mark Fisher “Capitalist Realism” O Books, 2009.