P2P Gift Credit Card - Gift Finance
2010. Digital print, embossed plastic cards, dimensions variable.

This artwork is a utopian monetary policy counterfeiting virtual money by issuing illicit Visa credit cards. In the work P2P Gift Credit Cards, Cirio hacked credit card technology to envision an alternative financial model based on a peer-to-peer social architecture. Gift Finance is a monetary policy invented by Cirio proposing the democratic creation of money for interest-free universal credit. The artist exploited credit card algorithms and standards to generate unique card numbers that were issued on the website P2PGiftCredit.com. Limited-edition physical plastic P2P Gift Credit Cards were made available by request and distributed worldwide via mail, art exhibitions, and public interventions across major cities in the UK. The distribution of counterfeit credit cards was used to protest and inform, highlighting the policies causing the financial downturn while the social movement Occupy was rising worldwide. In this first work of Cirio’s to use finance as a material for conceptual art, he questioned the notions of money, credit, and debit. By appropriating the marketing language of the credit card industry, the artwork involved its audience as cardholders, making them participants in Cirio’s social and economic model. The flowchart of the financial model and a framed credit card are displayed together in art exhibitions. Physical credit cards were distributed in the exhibitions to reproduce the artist’s interventions within the gallery setting.

Selected pictures of installations at the following shows
Mal au Pixel Festival, Paris; REALITYFLOWHACKED, Ljubljana; Visionary Trading, London.

Slides


Selected shows and presentations
Systems of Systems, exhibition at Giorgio Persano Gallery, 2019, Turin - Italy
FIY: The Art of Creating Economic Models lecture for ISP Whitney Museum, 2012, NYC - U.S.
ODNM lecture at L'École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs, 2012, Paris - France
DATA lecture at Science Gallery, 2012, Dublin - Ireland
Psychoeconomy
summit, lecture, 2011, Seville - Spain
UAMO festival, Ultra Social, exhibition, 2011, Munich - Germany
REALITYFLOWHACKED, solo show at Aksioma, 2011, Ljubljana - Slovenia
Abandon Normal Devices festival, lecture & performance, 2011, Liverpool - UK
Visionary Trading Project, Guest Projects, exhibition, 2011, London - UK
Utopian Currencies, exhibition and lecture, 2011, Paris - France


Selected pictures of the installations of the P2P Gift Credit Cards








Pictures of the P2P Gift Credit Cards
[ -> See all the selected pictures of details of the P2P Gift Credit Card and its packaging ]






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