Since I started making "macro art" in 2021, I had always wanted to do a performance art piece in a bank. Banks are the place where people encounter money in its most institutional setting. There's a reverence toward banks. On the outside they're built to convey strength, (The New York Federal Reserve bank is an absolute fortress.) On the inside they're like libraries; people stand in line whispering out of reverence for the contents inside. And yet, in popular culture, they're are few greater heroes than bank robbers. What kind of world do we live in where ordinary people risk their lives and long prison sentences to commit armed robberies for relatively small stacks of cash that ironically will lose value every year. 

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In the few times when I've actually gone inside of a bank, while standing in line, I couldn't help but to case the place: view the exits, the security guards, what it would be like slip a note to one of the tellers. So when I was contemplating this piece, there was a little bit of the excitement of a bank robbery. 

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How it went down

I originally planned to disperse a handful of sequentially ordered 50 2009 US $1 notes (K 874873501-K874873550) and marked them with the words, Incidentally the collection is inscribed on Bitcoin ordinals with in a consecutive series of satoshis that end in the identical three digits of 901-950. I marked and  "BURN YOUR MONEY" with a red marker. It was both a confrontational challenge to the customers who were patiently waiting in line to deposit or withdraw their own money and a nod to the red dye packs identify robbers after they've absconded with stacks of cash after a robbery. 

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The first performance was planned at a branch in Montgomery, AL.I had stayed with mother there for a period of months while she convalesced, and I wouldn't be recognized as I had never lived there before. For several weeks I cased several branches of Wells Fargo, Chase. and a local bank with about 100 branches in the Southeast called Regions. I needed an audience, and I wanted to make sure to have a crowded lobby. (There a less money kept in banks today than there have been in the past as most people used drive-throughs or ATM machines. and they're more often paid through direct deposits. But since some small businesses, especially in a rural area like Montgomery, still pay with checks every other Fridays, I reasoned that the best time would be at about sometime between noon and 4 pm on those days. Google confirmed this. 

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(More later)

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