Artist to test Auckland’s mood on the waterfront

Listing: Moodbank Wynyard, Vanessa Crowe and Letting Space,

Karanga Plaza, Corner of Jelicoe and Halsey Streets, Wynyard Quarter, Auckland

25 March - 4 May 2015

Image attached: The Wynyard Moodbank ATM receives a trial run. Image: Vanessa Crowe

From March 25 for six weeks Auckland is introduced to a new kind of banking service – one with mood rather than money as its currency.

Visitors, workers and residents of the Wynyard Quarter are invited to deposit their mood at a Moodbank ATM located in the Wynyard Quarter (Information Kiosk in Karanga Plaza). It provides users with an index of over 1000 moods to select from, allows them to view the Quarter’s mood trends, and make a deposit into a group account. Are you, for example, feeling 'cautiously optimistic', 'stoked as', 'a little bit blue with a glimmer of hope', 'as expansive as the sky today!' or 'slow, tired & a bit sick'?

“Increasingly,” says artist Vanessa Crowe, “businesses are discovering commercial value in nding out how happy we are. But what about the full diversity and rich complexity of our moods - how do you really feel?”

The work has been created by Crowe with the assistance of public art producers Letting Space and Waterfront Auckland.

In sight of the ASB head offices, Moodbank explores the potentials and pitfalls of digital connectivity and the role machines now play in our sharing of feelings and experiences. It validates all moods, rather than just those that are deemed valuable in consumer culture, proposing a social rather than economic form of exchange.

Moodbank Wynyard follows a pop-up Moodbank branch that opened in Wellington in 2014 and saw over 2000 mood deposits made in ten days.

Frith Walker, Place Manager at Waterfront Auckland says hosting the artwork has special meaning for the organisation as the process of engaging with the public on projects is ingrained in its approach to urban renewal.

“We fully recognise that we are but custodians on behalf of the city when it comes to the revitalisation of the Auckland waterfront and that public outcomes deserve equal footing with commercial outcomes.

“This artwork is clever and humorous take on this concept and we can’t wait to hear where people sit on the mood spectrum on what’s been done to date around Wynyard Quarter.”

Moodbank Wynyard aims to provoke debate regarding what emotions are considered appropriate, and our culture’s privileging of happiness. By mimicking and subverting the aesthetics of a bank, Moodbank draws attention to the processes in which our feelings become commercially valuable, while proposing a social rather than an economic form of exchange.

For more information: http://www.lettingspace.org.nz/moodbank-wynyardTo find out more on the Moodbank project go to www.moodbank.co.nz.

Vanessa Crowe is a Wellington based artist, designer and educator. Within her practice she has an ongoing interest in revealing humane aspects of everyday life that are often edited out or go unseen in our public life. Vanessa completed a Masters of Fine Arts at Massey University in Wellington in 2008, and her work has been shown in galleries throughout the country including The Govett Brewster, Bartley and Company, The Hirschfeld Gallery, Toi Ponkeke, The Suter, Mahara Gallery and The Blue Oyster. Vanessa teaches in Design at Massey University College of Creative Arts and in the Culture and Context Department at Victoria School of Design and Architecture. For more information seewww.vanessacrowe.co.nz

Over the last five years Letting Space have produced innovative public art projects across New Zealand, commissioning artists to work in public space as agents of social change and explore new ways through art and urban revitalisation to think more creatively and collectivelyabout our environment. They have commissioned and curated over a dozen projects and also run Urban Dream Brokerage, which enablesother independent producers to create innovative projects in vacant retail spaces in Wellington.

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