willem wilhelmus      action art
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Take Your Money Back

In April I attended the third annual "Contaminate" festival in Boston (www.contaminate-festival.com). The money crisis was slowly getting into everybody's mind. I didn't take any money with me but asked the people in the audience to count the coins they had in their pockets and "lend" it to me. The result was a hat full. I started to play with the coins, first throwing them on the floor and then placing them carefully on my head, my face, then, laying down, my throat, my breast, cutting my T-shirt open, my left shoulder and arm, my belly. I then wrote the words "please take your money back" on the floor and the people came running to pick up their coins, first those that had fallen off, then from my arm, my shoulder, some from my belly, my throat, then very carefully from my head and face, last from my eyes. Some of the coins were not collected, left behind with the note "please take your money back".

An edited video of the performance here
The video is part of a description published by The Present Tense, the festival organizer, on their site
Picture
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