Fri May 15, 2026
An artwork I created for the Ausländer group exhibition taking place at Prachtsaal Studio Berlin in May / June 2026.
The work stems from my struggle to understand our spending priorities. While millions struggle to survive globally, an unprovoked war has already cost over $78 billion. Each Tomahawk missile fired in that conflict costs ~$2.5 million; upon use, it destroys itself, along with lives and resources that took immense effort to build. Meanwhile, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has initiated the $500 billion Stargate program with the goal to build power-hungry data centers aimed at increasing its wealth. Companies producing the hardware for those data centers realize that selling RAM and SSDs to AI firms is more profitable than selling to average consumers, resulting in a fourfold price hike in just a few months. In contrast, German government-backed research estimates climate change will cost $38 trillion annually by 2050.
Visually, the work presents pen-plotted designs on three recyclable toilet paper sheets: a Tomahawk missile, the logo of a large AI company, and a computer RAM chip hovering above high USD values. The horizontal arrangement of these three distinct designs references gambling on slot machines, symbolizing a lack of control and sheer bad luck. The toilet paper serves as a metaphor for money being flushed down the drain.
Technically, the work has been printed with an Axidraw pen plotter, custom software written by the author and four Stabilo pens, then framed on a 400 x 300mm Halbe-Rahmen magnetic frame with Artglass AR 70. The pieces of paper are held in place with magnets and metallic spheres, floating between the white background and the non-reflective glass.
The paper and inks are not archival quality. They will some day fall apart, and the empty frame with dust at the bottom will be a reminder of how wisely money was used in the past.
Available for purchase.