REAL: Face Value

A time bank is a bartering system for services, where people exchange services for person-time credits rather than money. Most time banks are centrally administered. Face Value is a decentralised time bank: every visitor will be gifted a coin worth one person-hour. The only condition of accepting this gift is that you may not sell it, but only trade it. It has a fixed value of one person-hour.

Face value is the value printed or depicted on a coin, banknote, postage stamp, or ticket. It may be greater or less than the actual value. “Face value(!)” is also an imperative command: this exhibition encourages us all to reconsider what is really valuable today, and how to better live our values. It also explores ideas of value creation, cultural production, the gift economy, symbolic exchange and non-work.

The installation in the gallery is a series of forms derived from analysis of Adolf Loos’ bourgeois interiors. It is a catalogue of “attitudes of repose”—how seated individuals relate to each other in Loosian domestic interiors. The marbled cork surfaces are an homage to Loos’ Viennese bourgeoisie, who are amongst the most sophisticated and radical classes in European history.

REAL foundation is a cultural institute and architectural practice based in London. REAL is dedicated to promoting democracy, inclusivity and equalities of many kinds (amongst them, race, gender, class, wealth and space). Notable projects include curating the British Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale, and publishing Real Review. REAL works across the cultural and financial sectors and the design of domestic space. REAL has recently launched a housing company that aims to redefine ownership and affordability for this century, REAL homes. Jack Self is an architect. He is Director of REAL foundation and Editor-in-Chief of Real Review.

MAGAZIN is an exhibition space for contemporary architecture in Vienna. MAGAZIN presents the work of young local and international architects in solo exhibitions that are especially conceived for the spaces in the Weyringergasse location—framed by corresponding publications and lectures.