Money doesn1t talk. It phones. It faxes. It has a large account with an ad agency. Today1s alchemists inhabit the marketplace, a kind of Dark Arts lab where base images, objects and ideas are transformed into gold. Here, materialism is the founding doctrine, oracles prophesize a global future and trademarks are hermetically sealed.

Alchemy I : from Lead to Gold (the simultaneous product transmutation)

I have sculpted the entire lead of an actual pencil, leaving it fully intact and fragile. This mutant, aggressive pencil with a six-inch lead will be cast into 14k gold, referencing the primary metals in Alchemy.

One plinth holds the actual mutant pencil and one plinth holds the 14K gold cast. Two live link security cameras with a TV monitor will be on both pencils at all times. The monitor, on a middle plinth, will hypnotically flip from one camera image to the other.

On the wall/partition in black vinyl letters are the following words:

Project Alchemy

transfixion n. the act of keeping in one state (ultimately gold).
Alchemy Dictionary

transfix v. tr. 1 to pierce with a sharp implement or weapon. 2 [usually in passive] to root a person to the spot with fascination, astonishment, fear etc.; to paralyze the faculties of.
Oxford Dictionary

Alchemy II: from Lead to Gold (the simultaneous marketing transmutation)

The Billboard [see image]

The Secrets of a New Era
Unlike their forefathers, the alchemists of the marketplace have always been surprisingly eager to commit their methods to paper. But their treatises, while numerous, are intentionally confounding. These modern alchemists have traditionally veiled their true knowledge under layers of networking, dialect, symbol and allusion. [see: sex sells and Enron's accounting principles] Project Alchemy having finally achieved the ultimate goal can now reveal all secrets.

Project Alchemy consecrates the successful dual transmogrification of object [pencil] into both product and brand. The brand is the product and the product is the brand. [Nike came close]

Project Alchemy takes the prima materia of accounting and creating, the pencil, to the crucible of corporate power and by using the magic of advertising transmutes the pencil into a powerful symbol that can summon gold and thereby transform itself into gold.

Project Alchemy brings together the precise arcana of gold, the tria prima: the brand, the product and the consumer in an ideal passive and street accessible way.

Project Alchemy reveals the alchemical wisdom that branding is the transfixion of the consumer thereby maintaining a constant flow of gold.

Project Alchemy is the alchemical branding of branding; the successful creation of a brand for all brands.

Project Alchemy celebrates the arbitrary placement of value in the marketplace by creating a useless product. You can't write with it but you can make money with it, thereby achieving the pinnacle of product transformation.

Project Alchemy duplicates the dominating market aesthetic. [referred to in a secret manual used by HGTV as the "new totalitarian state of design" see section: while you were out cold]

Project Alchemy reveals through visual allusion the seductive power and use of dangerous ideas. This is why alchemy remains a dark art and money is the root of all evil.

Project Alchemy uses a powerful directional invocation. By facing the mutant pencil to the right, a conservative capital venture is invoked.

Project Alchemy uses the power of surveillance to record and maintain the flow of gold.

Project Alchemy mimics valuable product display.

Project Alchemy reasserts the immortal value of gold.


Artist Statement: My metaphorical approach to the pencil began 10 years ago. Inspired by the response to two pencil-based objects, I created a site-specific installation using thousands of pencils, titled Viewpoint Ahead. Many who saw Viewpoint Ahead only wanted statistical, economic, scientific and psychological explanations. I was repeatedly asked: How many pencils? How long did that take you? How much did that cost? Did a manufacturer sponsor you? How did you do that? Are you really that obsessive? Very few people discussed meaning. The most pervasive comment was "You should put this in an ad."

Project Alchemy is my response to the dominance of particular explanatory models and the recognition of the corporate appropriation of potent symbols in advertising.

In Project Alchemy I continue to build upon ideas and objects that question the domain of representation, ironically constructed from the primary tool for creating and accounting: the pencil.