ZEconomy

ZEconomics

What if less is better than more?
What if capital value is not produced by economic production?
What if the value of an individual was the economy?

ZEconomics takes the idea of a fully functional economy and scales it down to human size. It disbands with the obsession with capital wealth accumulation in favor of accumulating consciously lived life good, bad, and ugly focusing on parts of life we all deal with whether we want to or not. From depression to sex, nostalgia, health, to relationships and death. A shared economy of the basics of life that unites us even in our differences.

Origin Projects

Zederal Reserve

Since 2007, dedicated to creating monetary systems & banking instruments that are not based on numbers (non-quantifiable) such as: Relationships, Death, Family and art itself.

JaZoN Ex.

Redefines portraiture, self worth, & the value of an individual in the form of a stock market featuring hundreds of thousands of price evaluations since 2007.

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ZExchanges Z1

Takes the linguistics of the economic world and uses it all wrong as the Z Economy's news source. Focuses on expressing the happenings of living that influence how life profits are interpreted. 2008 - 2019

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Z Time Index

A real time macro-index that served as an overall evaluation for the value of different moments in JaZoN's daily life. Each moment featured a notation with video, photo, comment, and statistical analysis. 2008 - 2017

Capital Markets

ZExchange

What if value wasn't a number?

A live trading floor experience for 1 to 200 participants, lasting 1 to 24 hours. But this isn't Wall Street. Here, the asset class is human experience itself.

Trade Human Conditions

Instead of Apple or Nvidia, invest in Zo Depression Corp, Stomach Pain Industries, Zo Happy Inc. Every stock represents a facet of being alive.

Spend Relationships

Forget dollars. Here you pay with Zollars, currency denominated by relationship type: Love, Friendship, Hate, Erotic, Toxic, Death.

Consume Collectively

Own a glass of wine? You can't acquire it alone. To redeem any commodity, you must ask others for approval. Consumption requires mutual consent.

The Market Watches Back

An AI narrates every transaction, interpreting what your trades reveal about you. The market doesn't just move, it speaks.

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JaZoN Ex.

JaZoN Ex. redefines portraiture, self worth, and the value of an individual in the form of a stock market. Composed of companies that valorize living in all its forms: experiences, intellect, sexuality, physical health, emotions... etc, the oeuvre is a multi faceted, continually evolving accumulation and implementation of data generated by JaZoN's interpretation of life. Featuring multiple hundreds of thousands of price evaluations to date, the global project is expressed in both virtual and physical forms going all the way back to 2007.

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JaZoN Ex. Charts

Virtual Trading Floors

Spaces that narrate how JaZoN Ex. value is displaced from wall street to the spaces around JaZoN.

A representation of how value can be generated and exchanged in the spaces that surround us from the interior of ourselves to the exterior. They are thought of as explorations of value displacement from centralized stock trading floors, to both imaginary and real places where ZEconomy life profits can be exchanged.

JaZoN Ex. Small Boards

Small Boards represent different relation value movements on the JaZoN Ex., only on a very small market scale.

JaZoN Ex. Stock Certificates

NFT stock certificates for listed JaZoN Ex. companies.

One And Three JaZoN's

A tautological installation expressing JaZoN Ex. online / offline / connected.

Online: JaZoN Ex. Big Board Clone, 600 gifs representing real time JaZoN Ex. values.

Offline: Data Columns, printed archive representing the past values from the JaZoN EX. database entries.

Connected: Mini Z Clone Value Controller, changes stock prices of listed JaZoN Ex. companies.

Paris, @ galerie mfc-michele didier

Mini Z Clone V1

Changes JaZoN Ex. company share values via a Raspberry PI with touch screen. 600 gif animations, custom made oak box.

JaZoN Ex. Big Board Clone

600 gifs representing all listed JaZoN Ex. companies stock price, updated in real time. Red=down, Green=up.

JaZoN Ex. Data Columns

A printed archive representing 10 years of past values from over 200,000 JaZoN EX. database entries.

A Paper Bag To Cover My Beer

If you know you know.

JaZoN Ex. Trading Floor Z1

Interactive Installation @ 59e Salon du Montrouge

The "JaZoN Ex. Trading Floor" is an interactive installation that allows spectators to participate in an immersive experience inside the stock market created by JaZoN Frings.

1. A "Big Board" indicating live stock prices for over 300 companies listed on the JaZoN Ex.

2. An iPad app allowing users to speculate about different stock prices by changing them in real time.

3. All price changes are noted by a ticket printed immediately after the price change.

Big Board

Live stock prices for over 300 companies, alternating with 75 news reports about market conditions.

Raspberry Pi Controller

Price changes noted by ticket printed immediately after the change.

Z Lover Hedge Fund MR1

Z Engraving on wood, 40cm x 55cm per certificate.

Z Speculation App

iPad app for real-time stock price speculation.

Advertising

PubliZity

Advertising to promote possible narratives of living life.

Each poster promotes the happenings of living and is meant to emphasize consuming the acts of our quotidian instead of objects. Advertising with the goal of keeping us grounded in the moment instead of promoting the next mindless distraction.

Industry

Z Factory Kamidana

Z Factory Kamidana are a hybrid place of life worship and living production for a contemporary globalized world. The factory aspect alludes to the western capitalistic idea of a place where production takes place. The kamidana aspect, alludes to shintoism, representing a shrine where a kami (shinto spirit) resides and can be worshiped. Each Z Factory Kamidana is placed deliberately within our quotidian to provide an object that keeps us present, while paying homage to the production of being alive in the now.

Mini Z Factory Anxiety Shinto

A shrine for the anxiety in your life.

Mini Z Factory Style Shinto

Style shrine on shoe shelf.

Shinto Reading Production

A shrine to reading in your life.

Shinto Music Listening/Making

A shrine to enjoying music in your life.

News Outlet

ZExchanges Z2 2023 - Present

A study of a hauntological rendition of value, and fragmented memories that linger on and on and on.

ZExchanges Z2 is the evolution of the ZExchanges (2008-2019) into a collaborative digital video / photo news feed focusing on creating critical digital experiences inspired by a variety of sources, notably the narcotic tendencies of social media news feeds.

Each project features a global structure housing individual digital works of all kinds and is envisioned to be a collaborative experience challenging how we consume art.

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Nothing for Money News

17 REMIXed videos from previous JaZoN Ex News updates intertwined with ZEconomy Advertising.

Nothing for Money News

Morphing into an endless, decontextualized, narcissistic, glitched memory.

Coffee Update REMIX

ZExchanges Coffee Update REMIX (2018 - 2021 - 2023)

TerrorTv News Feed

Scene from Videodrome

ZExchanges Z1 2008 - 2019

The first fully dedicated news outlet for ZEconomy.

ZExchanges takes the linguistics of the economic world and uses it all wrong as the Z Economy's news source. Instead of using news reports to report on the current state of the economy, Z Exchanges focuses on expressing the happenings of living that influence how life profits are interpreted.

Today comprised of more than 300 articles and videos all made with zero budget. The poor quality of the videos plays a double role in critiquing the often plastic appearance of financial news, while playing up the notion of youtube aesthetics.

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Central Bank

Zederal Reserve

Since 2007 the Zederal Reserve has been dedicated to creating monetary systems, & banking instruments that are not based on numbers (non-quantifiable) such as: Relationships, Death, Family and art itself. Its primary goal is to express life/value in other forms than the traditional idea of 100 being more than 10.

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Zollar Currency Exchange Teller Sessions

What if profit making had no numbers, and instead the very relationships that bind us together became the basis for our money?

Does monetary value always have to be based on economic growth or can we use a more human, personalized, backing for the value of money?

What does an economic exchange look like if everyone feels differently about the value on the face of a bill?

How can you spend your relationships: erotic, fellowship, superficial, friend, hate or love?

Since 2007 the Z Relationship Monetary System has taken the established numerical sequential value out of money along with our predetermined understanding of financial worth. Instead it replaces the numerical idea of value with an inevitable part of life; our relationships.