I ______ a dollar?
As part of the PoorQuality: Inequality exhibition that is currently on display at the CAH, we are showing a piece of art by Jody Servon entitled “I ______ a dollar.” This piece started out as one hundred $1 bills stuck flat against the wall. The bills hung there in a simple, uniform shape, Washington after Washington. The money was there for the taking, but only if you needed it. Jody asked viewers to think about the value of a single dollar, to contemplate their “needs” in relation to their “wants.”
Featuring: Cara Ansher. Photographed by: Aline Grüneisen.
“My hope is for people to actively consider whether or not having this single dollar will make a difference in his or her life, or if they feel the dollar is better left for someone else who needs it more. Perhaps the invitation to take free money will eclipse the question of want vs. need.”
A week went by, and one dollar disappeared. Afraid that the piece would dissolve too quickly, one lab member replaced the missing dollar. The art was whole again. More time went by, and another lab member needed change for the vending machine. So she took five singles and left her $5 bill. We treated the piece as if it was our own, moving bills around but preserving its integrity. The wall of money remained, for the most part, intact.
We asked Jody about her expectations for the piece.
“Among the scenarios I considered were one person swiping all of the dollars on the first day, the dollars slowly disappearing one-by-one, someone rearranging the dollars in a different design, or somewhat disappointingly, the piece remaining on the wall untouched.”
But the wall did not remain untouched, and one day it encountered a group of guests who came in on a particularly quiet day and left with most of the money. Sure, we were a little annoyed; our precious wall had been ransacked. But that was its purpose, and we laughed it off. At least we had a good story, right?
Some time later, one of the ransackers returned. This time, the CAH was bustling, full of people and lively conversation. He walked in, saw the commotion, and hesitated for just a moment before telling us that he was hungry. We don’t have any food here, but there are plenty of restaurants down the street, we told him. Of course, he was not asking where he could buy food. We knew that. But none of us jumped up to offer what was left of the money hanging on the wall. It was art, after all.
Here we were, hosting an exhibit on “inequality,” and there was no doubt that this man lay farther down on the distribution of wealth than any of us. And in all of our musings on the exhibit, never did we think that we might find ourselves faced with the perfect case of actual inequality.
Until this moment, we had primarily used and conceived of the wall of bills as a cashier. Yes, we contemplated whether we needed or simply wanted a dollar. But most of us don’t need a dollar. In the end, this experience may be the ultimate experiment of our project. And we stumbled into it unintentionally, or rather, he stumbled into our gallery.
A collaboration between Dan Ariely & Aline Grüneisen
The PoorQuality: Inequality Exhibit will be up until the end of August (and we will see whether there are any dollar bills left).
The Honest Truth About Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone - Especially Ourselves
It is so easy to think about inequality until you are faced with it and have had the humbling experience of actually needing a dollar.
Most fascinating to me is the wall was ‘ransacked’ yet they didn’t take all the money.
Seems like you’d get two corner solutions; take nothing or take all. Why inside solutions?
Your thoughts?
Doesn’t this experience show how societal norms can trump even wants and needs at times? The ‘ransacker’ joined the previous group in taking some of the bills on one occasion, but hesitated on the next occasion when no one else was ransacking the work and possibly the surroundings were less inviting. The want and need still existed but the norm vanished. No one was on this person’s side nor recognized the need or want.
I had a strange experience years ago that is related somewhat. On the way home from an early morning jog I spotted a 5000 yen bill (equivalent to about $50) in the street, picked it up and returned home. I talked about my find to a friend who scolded me and said that it was wrong to take it. Months later, on my way to the store, I saw a 10,000 yen bill ($100) lying on the ground near the entrance to the market. I left it there and couldn’t wait to tell my friend about it. This time though, my friend said I was stupid not to pick it up! This confused me, and when I reminded my friend of her previous response, she denied she had ever said that. To this day I wonder if her different response had something to do with the value of the bill, the place I found it, or possibly a shift in perception of her needs or wants. I do believe that my decision to leave that $100 bill was influenced by my friend’s initial reaction to my $50 find and my need for acceptance over monetary gain.
I believe Dr. Ariely’s research has proven on many occasions that social approval does at times move people to reassess their personal needs and wants and act at times against them.
“…no doubt that this man lied farther down on the distribution of wealth than any of us.” You mean “lay”, not “lied”.
Fixed.
Your post reminded me of something from my past. One time I worked a temp job at a PR firm. I sat in 1 of 2 cubicles with 7 foot walls (the rest had 4 foot walls). One day as I approached my “cube” I noticed something. There was a ridge detail in the wall about 6″ from the top with nickels lined up the entire length of 2 walls. When I asked I was told someone started it 3 years before and people had added to it over time. Every once in awhile someone would borrow a nickel or two but it would always be put back intact.
Once we were visiting a used record shop in Birmingham, Alabama. As we were leaving this man, clearly homeless, approached us asking money saying he was hungry. My Husband offered to buy the man lunch but the man took the moment to at cuss us instead. We walked off and no more than ten feet, my Husband bent down and found a twenty dollar bill sitting on the sidewalk. It was a very odd lesson to explain to our children who were small at the time. But my husband said, “If the man had taken the time to look past his perceptions about his situation in life, he would have been the one to find the opportunity.” The experience reminded me of the old song verse that goes, “Looking for love in all the wrong places.” Sometimes we all are in such a bad place we cannot see a way out. I do believe that there are more good people than bad and depending on the situation, lo, at any one moment of time, life has away of changing our needs. The trick is recognizing the solution.
Sadly this exhibit and the reaction of those who were barring the man who actually NEEDED the money from “ransacking” the exhibit which you even state was designed to make people THINK, says far too much about our society.
Perhaps, like the teen who won an award (likely from adults as oddly out of touch with what want and need really mean) for collecting prom dresses to give to those less privileged teens unable to afford such beautiful dresses…there needs to be a day on the streets with no money and no ability to get any. It will make a great social experiment Dan.
Or at the very least, assisting in a soup kitchen. My teen volunteers in a soup kitchen and knows exactly what “needs” means. I am curious why you adults are struggling and stumbling to be able to understand with what is happening to the mentally and physically challenged, jobless and homeless.
(Your “revelation” means you are not very “enlightened” about who “needs it more.” What should be stunning is that 3 people who really needed it actually left some … perhaps knowing there were some who NEEDED it even more than they)