At Face Value, Zachary Formwalt, NL 2008, 22'. Drafts, Juri Schaden, AT 2013, 22'.
Transactions, Yin-Ju Chen, TW 2008, 8'. Indefinite Pitch, James N. Kienitz Wilkins,
US 2016, 23'.

While coins made of silver and gold had intrinsic value, paper money—and certainly electronic money—is materially worthless. Then what authenticates the value of money? Horns of the ultimate sacrificial animal, the bull, can be recognized in the double stripes of the Dollar sign, the Pound sign, and even the Euro symbol. This reveals the connection between money and sacrificial offerings, atonements made for the life-debt arising from people’s power over the natural world. “These sacrificial offerings were later replaced by money,” writes cultural theorist Christina von Braun. The history of the money economy is a history of disembodiment. However, in periods of inflation and financial crisis, money’s lost credibility materializes in the loss of real goods and social security. The films in this program discuss stamps, money, and labor, landscapes of lost industries, and images as a strategy for garnering new faith in the future.