Debt Price

Textual insert and software

documenta is an exhibition with admission tickets, the takings from which are an important part of its whole economy. Several different tickets are on sale at different prices: the day ticket (22 euros for documenta 14); the reduced-price ticket; the two-day ticket; the season ticket; etc.

The Debt Price project simply consists in adding in an extra entry ticket price to the existing set of entry ticket prices for Kassel. This entry ticket price, called Debt Price, is indexed in real time to the rate of the 10-year Greek Government Bond. This indexation only takes place for the day ticket. Visitors can choose between paying the standard price for their entry ticket or the Debt Price. If they choose this rate, the Debt Price is printed on the day ticket itself, beside its standard price (22 €).

The Debt Price is calculated in real time according to the current rate for Greek sovereign debt (10Y Greek Government Bond). If the interest rate for debt increases, the ticket price increases. If the interest rate falls, the ticket price also falls. The calculations for the whole process are carried out automatically using software installed on the documenta 14 website and on the admission ticket office computers with Internet access. This day ticket price, then, is not fixed, but variable. After Klossowski’s Living Currency, here now is the living ticket. Its price fluctuates all the time according to the actual rate of Greek sovereign debt throughout the duration of documenta 14. In other words, the debt market determines the price of this day ticket.

In dialogue with curator Paul B. Preciado and activist Enric Duran, another parameter of the project is to allocate all potential profit from the sales of Debt Price –  here I mean only the extra profits made through the sale of the debt ticket – to The Cooperativist Society, associated with documenta 14 in Greece.

This proposal, submitted to the curatorial team in October 2016, led to various discussions between its members, who suggested some changes. In March 2017, the documenta CEO approved a statement version and from that moment I began working on a ticket prototype and got in touch with the comms department in order to carry out a study regarding the project’s technical implementation. At the end of March, the comms department told me that the project had been put on hold while awaiting curatorial approval. The project was definitively abandoned in mid-April.

This text has been published in Pierre Bal-Blanc, The Continuum Was Performed in the Following Manner. Notes on documenta 14, Rome / Genève, Nero / Centre d’art contemporain de Genève, 2022.

Ce texte a été publié dans Pierre Bal-Blanc, The Continuum Was Performed in the Following Manner. Notes on documenta 14, Rome / Genève, Nero / Centre d’art contemporain de Genève, 2022.