‘Money No Object’ uses new wearable technologies in order to bring humans closer together, for the benefit of the whole community.

Adopting a broad line of enquiry, this project questions prevailing concepts of value, and playfully explores alternative economic ideas. For example, 'Money No Object', considers a new significance for material and physical currencies in an increasingly immaterial world, where smart payment transactions are imperceptible, but human emotions, creativity and culture, remain something that money can’t buy. Alongside sex and war, physical money has been a constant in human history. But coins, cash and credit cards, are arguably obsolete now that digital representations of currency are beginning to substitute these material objects. Yet trading still relies on trust. So how can we trust what we cannot tangibly experience, what we can no longer touch, see, smell or hear?

'Money No Object' has re-imagined the designed object of money, exploring what could happen if financial transactions offered a different kind of value proposition, and in a new creative economy, could trigger invaluable and enriching points of exchange.

Watch a six minute video illustrating 'Money No Object' here: https://vimeo.com/64412606

Wired magazine loved the project here: http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/13/money-hugs

Heidi Hinder was awarded one of three Craft + Technology research residencies, in order to develop this proposal for exploring the Internet of Things; smart technology embedded into everyday objects. Supported by the Crafts Council and Bristol’s Watershed Media Centre for three months, Heidi researched the far-reaching themes of money and value in ‘Money No Object’, producing innovative new work at the dynamic intersection of material making and digital interaction.
She now plans to take this project further by introducing it to a museum ecosystem as an entertaining method of fun(d)-raising.

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