SPACE-SHUTTLE

Mission Four : Blackstaff Square ’, - Siraj Izhar
9 - 19 October 2006


A mythic, utopian fable about basic social and economical realities, which feeds on the aspirations, spinning hearts and minds, confusing past and future...

Health and Wealth
H&W is a paradoxical social currency which acts as a tool to re-think the relationship between happiness and economics. H&W uses a scientific approach to simulate the logic of orthodox current thinking which conflates happiness and the pursuit of money in an endless process of economic growth by reproducing the same pyramidal distribution of Wealth that already structures society. The best paradigm to illustrate this is the social institution of the National Lottery. Health and Wealth uses the structure of the National Lottery based on permutations of 1 to 49 as on a lottery board to simulate the permutations of an artificial social system.

Health & Wealth is based on all combinations of numbers between [1] and [49] as on a National Lottery form. The Health & Wealth development process is based on statistical accumulation of cultural, political, social and personal values which demarcate public space. These connect through the lottery numbers 1 to 49 in a participative game on a 7 by 7 board.

In this game the Lottery board serves as an universal gateway through which the social permutations can be channeled through. A 7 by 7 board is a symmetrical and statistically democratic grid in which the possible routes and connections between the variables can be played out in a million unique & different ways each day.

The lottery may be seen as a particular form of social currency circulation that gives and takes away - barters - in ways that both simplify and unify cultural complexities. 

The lottery is a game that converts all possible permutations of 1 to 49 to ideally form into a pyramidal shape; the top of the pyramid [1] symbolises the jackpot and the demographics of distribution and social development.

Health and Wealth uses the same process to re-create a game for the Health and Wealth syndicate. In this game public space and private values are structured in accordance with free individual choice. How the values of free individual choice are made by individual participants provide the 6 numbers between 1 and 49 needed for use in the lottery.
These numbers are pooled together by the Health & Wealth syndicate to use in the lottery to symmetrically mirror the dynamics of pyramidal social construction.

Health & Wealth harvests the data necessary for its development by planting the 7 by 7 gaming grid onto public space as an intervention.
This grid is placed in an urban prototypical space already pre-structured with cultural values.
Each axis is seen as a slice with 7 variables which can intersect according to the personal judgements of public participants.
There are 2 dimensions as on the 7 by 7 lottery board as shown here.
There are 2 further operating dimensions:
Space as daily flow of participants and agents x7
Space as passage of time in days x7

The flow of public through this structure and their participation provides raw data to develop the Health & Wealth social algorithm. The algorithm may be used to programme an artificial social system in which differentiating interests and processes negotiate the same spatial grid in accordance with defined non-deterministic social laws mediated by the algorithm.

'7 by 7’ a game by Siraj Izhar and the Health & Wealth Syndicate

Is Belfast your home? If so the Health & Wealth syndicate invites you to contribute to '7 by 7’ a game that explores the economics of well-being in Belfast. Participants are needed 9 to 15 October 2006 with the chance to win millions. Places are limited. To take part call 07939570901 or email H&W@xyzlondon.com 

'Health and Wealth'

All around the mulberry bush
The monkey chased the weasel,
The monkey thought 'twas all in fun.
Pop! Goes the weasel.

A penny for a spool of thread,
A penny for a needle.
That's the way the money goes,
Pop! Goes the weasel.

Drawn out of fragments (drawings and performances) from a mythic utopian fable based on the workings of an omnipotent enterprise called 'Health & Wealth'  which feeds on the aspirations of its discordant peoples, spinning and winning hearts and minds, confusing past and future...

Visit Website : http://www.xyzlondon.com