Receipts Collection: voyeurist economics

Overview

The process of a transaction, in America, usually involves the transfer of currency for goods or services. These transactions are then logged in small pieces of paper called receipts. Most receipts come with specific data printed on them, commonly including the value of the goods transferred and the time and location where these goods exchanged hands. More often than not, a receipt will include sensitive data of the two parties involved.

The process of collecting receipts results in a system of data which can be mined for information about the transactions taking place. Often economic analysts will collect immeasurable amounts of data from a producer to evaluate the demographics of spending within a company. Although most people no longer collect receipts in an age of digital monetary transactions, for every physical transfer of goods or services for money, a receipt is still provided as proof of that transaction. It is this proof which I have collected during the past three months from six consenting artists.

This installation space is documentation of the artwork of collecting receipts and mining the data from these receipts in order to show the spending trends of the six artists involved. Through this collection, I am showing a system of data and order made from six separate expenditures. Systems are created from labels and the organization of data. As an archivist, I searched through the data and have investigated our spending habits through an analysis of this benign object, the receipt.

These receipts mark our experience within a currency economy. As artists we have spent the past several months collecting the receipts in this room.