Mueseum Of Contemporary Commodities (MoCC)

Published April 15, 2016

mocc

Valuing the things we buy today as the heritage of tomorrow.

Mon 25 Apr – Sat 21 May

Imagine as you next walk down the high street or relax in your local park, that everything is known about you – your name, your favourite cafe, your last purchase, your most personal feelings, and even your religious beliefs. Does a warm feeling of belonging grow within you, or does this invasive surveillance freak you out? With retail driving the development of real-time big data processes, how and what we trade, exchange and consume and where we do it, is affecting both the worlds we live in, and those we dream of making – in ways that seem increasingly far beyond our knowledge or control.

Museum of Contemporary Commodities (MoCC) is a digitally networked arts project that invites us to collectively re-value our commodity cultures, by treating the things we buy today as the heritage of tomorrow. In May 2016 MoCC is presenting a series of lively, and entertaining digital hacktivist activities and associated events in Exeter and online, that explore the deep links between data, trade, place and values that shape our everyday lives.

The Museum of Contemporary Commodities is neither a building nor a permanent collection of stuff – it’s an invitation. To consider every shop, online store and warehouse full of stuff as if it were a museum, and all the things in it part of our future heritage. Imagine yourself as this museum’s curator with the power to choose what is displayed and how. To trace and interpret the provenance and value of these things and how they arrived here. To consider the effects this stuff has on people and places close by or far away, and how and why it connects them. What do we mean by things or stuff? Everything that you can buy in today’s society. The full range of contemporary commodities available to consume.

MoCC is an art-social science research project led by artist Paula Crutchlow (Blind Ditch) and cultural geographer Dr Ian Cook (University of Exeter & followthethings.com). The project is being developed in partnership with Furtherfield (nominated for Prix Ars Electronica 2016), collaborating artists, technologists, and members of the public with an aim to investigate and make visible some of the complex relationships at play between data surveillance, trade justice, and global and local commodity culture.

MoCC in Exeter is also working with partners Exeter Phoenix, FabLab Devon, Exeter Library, Art Week Exeter and TOPOS Exeter to curate a series of outreach activities that investigate our relationships to things, value and digital culture.

MoCC Events at Exeter Phoenix: