ongoing work series

The Wertschöpfungspapiere  (Value Creation Paper) form the conceptual core of my artistic practice. They begin with devalued and shredded euro banknotes obtained from the Deutsche Bundesbank, which I transform into handmade paper. Their institutional demonetization opens a new mode of circulation: no longer functioning as currency but as material, they examine the processes through which value is collectively imagined, produced, circulated, and transformed.

Each work materializes a specific operation within this chain of value production, translating it into a sculptural constellation. Enlarged, pixelated emojis function as a corporate visual language that reduces complex economic, technological, and social relations to seemingly universal signs. BDSM hardware and architectural elements simultaneously reveal the bodily and spatial infrastructures through which these signs become operative.

Rather than examining value itself, the Wertschöpfungspapiere investigate the material conditions through which value is collectively produced, organized, believed, and continuously transformed.

[related text]

Forms of Resistance  Zakirah Rabaney, 2024
The Alienation of the Moon Kalas Liebfried, 20 seconds magazine, 2024 (print)
Random Access Memory Zakirah Rabaney, 2024
Berlin Hyp Award Ines Wittneben, 2023

[related work]

Datenkörper [operating failure system] II
Datenkörper [operating failure system]
algorithmic nostalgia [fetishized]
bonding values
spatial values