Hypothetical Value (2024)
Essay Film and Public Intervention
This project critically examines the tension between measurable and immeasurable worth, questioning how value is constructed across different contexts/places when it cannot be quantified through traditional systems such as barter, gifting, or auction.
Drawing on David Graeber’s critique of the economic assumption that humans are “inherently calculating animals,” the film reflects on forms of value that fall outside monetary frameworks. It follows a chain of exchanges that reveal how meaning shifts across places and encounters. Through numerical comparison, the film questions what truly connects these objects and whether value can ever be measured at all — by price, area, time, distance, or emotion.
356 sq.cm. of acrylic painting was exchanged for
920 characters / 172 words of a poem, which was exchanged for
26:21 minutes of conversation at a Thai grocery in London, which was exchanged for
5,541 miles of Thai lottery footage, sent by Timpika from Thailand.
Public Intervention
The film also confronts the limits of these exchanges in commercial contexts. Attempts to barter in real-life markets were met with rejection—underscoring the persistent authority of money. In response, a public intervention was staged on London Bridge, where the film was screened through an unused cash machine. Passersby were invited to "auction" the rejected objects, questioning the role of monetary systems in assigning value and how worth shifts across place, time, and culture. An item dismissed in one setting might carry deep meaning in another.
