Crisis In the Credit System
Video, 2008
Crisis in the Credit System is a four-part drama dealing with the credit crisis, scripted and directed by artist Melanie Gilligan. A major investment bank runs a brainstorming and role-playing session for its employees, asking them to come up with strategies for coping with today’s dangerous financial climate. Role-playing their way into increasingly bizarre scenarios, they find themselves drawing disturbing conclusions about the deeper significance of the crisis and its effects beyond the world of finance. Using fiction to communicate what is left out of documentary accounts of the crisis, the short, TV-style episodes reflect the strangeness of life today in which the financial abstractions that govern our lives appear to be collapsing. Crisis in the Credit System is the result of extensive research and conversation with major hedge fund managers, key financial journalists, economists, bankers and debt activists. (M.G.)
Artist's Bio:
Melanie Gilligan is an artist and writer based in London and New York. Gilligan has written fo magazines and journals such as Texte zur Kunst, Mute, Artforum, and Grey Room. In 2008 Gilligan released Crisis in the Credit System, a four-part fictional mini drama about the recent financial crisis, made specifically for internet viewing. Her most recent serial video works Popular Unrest and also Self-Capital both look at the current state of politics post-economic crisis. In 2010, Gilligan showed Popular Unrest as a solo exhibition at the Chisenhale Gallery, London; Kolnischer Kunstverein, Cologne; The Banff Centre; Presentation House Gallery, North Vancouver. (e-flux)