Public art project for Madrid Abierto 2009-2010 in La Latina / Plaza del Humilladero.
Starting date: 29 October 2009
Location: Plaza del Humilladero and entire La Latina neighborhood

Every banknote carries a trade value, but also a potential future value (saving for the next holidays, for the desired car, ...). Every conversation carries the potential of a future business, a new invention, a new task, a chance.

Everyone carries an unused potential, an idea in mind, an observation, an untold story or observation, unused old coins in a drawer at home. The public art project TITLE seeks to collect as many of these little individual potentials as possible. The art project brings them together to transform them into real things, projects and outcomes in the real world.

More than 136 436 519 996,32 Peseta coins and 159 065 015 995.71 Peseta
banknotes remain in peoples private property. TITLE will collect the Peseta* coins and banknotes in a public collection site in Plaza del Humilladero, La Latina neighborhood for the period of October 2009 to Mid February 2010. Along with the peseta collection, the project will ask the neighborhood and the users of the neighborhood (visitors of the Rastro market and markets, bars, cafes) actively, what they would like to realize with this public and worthless money in and for La Latina? The project will collect and publish extensively the wishes during the period of the event on a webpage, in the public media and in the neighborhood. During the final months of February, the wishes will be presented in a daily public art action on La Castellana.

On 20 February 2010, everyone is invited to publicly sort the coins and banknotes before the transport on 22nd February 2010 to the Banco de Espana.

On 27 February 2010 everybody who would like to be part of the decision making group, is invited to attend an Open Space event at Circulo de Bellas Artes. This one day event will be used to decide collectively what will happen to the pesetas and how this will be put into action.

TITLE is an artproject that serves as a model to empower people. It offers a creative platform that allows people to work together, to develop a collaborative spirit and inclusion. It offers the experience of a collective decision process. The art project combines an aesthetic appearance with a meaningful public debate. It creates a large forum for potential. By concentrating on one neighborhood, the project will empower people that live in close proximity and have a personal relationship, connectedness to the site and each other.

TITLE will do this through a number of artistic actions and interventions for a duration of 4 months from the end of October 2009 to end of February 2010.

A multi-media collection site will be on a public place on Plaza del Humilladero for the duration of 4 months to collect coins, banknotes and wishes, also to visualize wishes.

For the same duration, an interactive blog and regular actions in the neighborhood will introduce the project. Action dates are:
29.10.-1.11.2009, 12.11.-16.11.2009 , 12.12.-20.12. 2009 and 31.1.- 28.2. 2010.

During the final months of February, the wishes will be presented in a daily public art action on La Castellana. On 20 February 2010, everyone is invited to publicly sort the coins and banknotes and transport them to the Banco de Espana. On 27th February 2010 everybody who would like to be part of the decision making group, is invited to attend an Open Space event. This one day event will be used to decide collectively what will happen to the pesetas and how this will be put into action.

Web info: xxxx.xx
The multi-medial collection site was designed and built by www.zoohaus.net

**The name is believed to have been derived from the Catalan word "peceta", meaning "little piece" (i.e., the diminutive of "peça", "-eta" being the usual feminine diminutive). However, it is also possible that the name is the diminutive of "peso", an already-existing currency whose name derives from a unit of weight; this is consistent with such other currencies as the British pound.

(October 2009)

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