Sunday, February 22, 2009

Money

Stephen Barnwell is an artist whose work has recently caught my attention. Barnwell works in Moneyart. According to his website, "Moneyart is the fine art genre where the artwork references the visual language and symbolic imagery of currency. Because of the innate power of money, this form of art is ideally suited for political satire." His works depict the politically-inspired realms of the Empire of America, the State of War, and the United States of Islam; the "dream dollars" of Antarctica; and some actual negotiable instruments for use within the Jefferson County, Iowa community. My favorite of the lot is the Islamic one dollar bill. George Washington's somber mug has been replaced by a lack of Mohammed's image, since it is, after all, a capital offense to depict an image of the Prophet.

Jefferson County has quite a thing for alternative currency apparently. Maharishi Vedic City, Iowa uses Raam Mudra, the "currency of the Global Government of World Peace," kind of like Disney Dollars for the Transcendental Meditation set.

1 comment:

King of the Paupers said...

When I visited Europe in 1999, I paid for 39/40 nights of accommodations with an IOU for a night back in Canada worth 5 Hours.
It's only a matter of time until all systems based on the Time Standard of Money will use the internet to intertrade globally. I did.
We need the United Nations Millennium Declaration UNILETS Resolution C6 to governments for a time-based currency to restructure the global financial architecture. Barter Timebanks are economic lifeboats. Google "anti-poverty system" and get LETS. See my banking systems engineering analysis at http://youtube.com/kingofthepaupers with an index of articles at http://johnturmel.com/kotp.htm