The smell of money

An installation by Matt Rogalsky

The global economy has become a faceless, abstract thing. Real trade in goods between people has been eclipsed in importance by a virtual world of computerised financial transactions. This strange new reality is the inspiration for an art exhibition at the University of Cambridge's Judge Institute of Management Studies.

Matt Rogalsky's The smell of money, a temporary, site-specific visual and sound installation, is the culmination of a four-month residency hosted by the Judge Institute .

The installation takes the form of a video projection of constantly changing colour fields, shown in the foyer of the Judge Institute. The images are accompanied by a sound element placed outside the building, at a window where visitors can stand and view the projection.

The work is a meditation on the movements of money at two extremes: the almost abstract level of international foreign exchange, and the more human scale of everyday high-street interaction. In the exhibition the Judge Institute's sophisticated technology for gathering financial data is employed to track the rising and falling exchange rates of 100 world currencies, rendered in graphics and sound.

During the run of the exhibition, visitors to the project's website will be invited to download a free version of the installation, which also changes in response to the real-time currency values.

Matt Rogalsky lives and works in England. He has exhibited and performed in Europe, the USA and Canada.
The Smell of Money is hosted by the Judge Institute of Management Studies, Cambridge, and facilitated by Cambridge Darkroom Gallery/Institute of Visual Culture, Cambridge.

The exhibition runs for one month, from 17 February - 17 March 2001
The Judge Institute of Management Studies is on Trumpington Street.
Visit the exhibition website.
Contact Matt Rogalsky by email on info@I-smell-money.com