This project was made in collaboration with Miklos Erhardt and Elske Rosenfeld as an extension to the 'Talking About Economy' project, with the intention of presenting some more positive solutions to the problems and critique that were raised in that initial stage.

The name Commonopoly is paraphrased from Monopoly, understood both as the economic term and the name of the well-known board game. Unlike Monopoly, the goal of Commonopoly is not the exhaustion, through monopolization, of a virtual stock of goods, but rather the expansion and preservation of a self-propelling sustainable system of recycling, production and distribution. The word 'common' employed in the name originates from the notion of 'the commons', that is, the resources such as air, water, public space etc. that by their nature contradict attempts at private ownership. Commonopoly is a model of a system where resources are held in common, avoiding their depletion.

Like other Big Hope (www.bighope.hu) projects, the 'artwork' provides a platform for shared creativity. In this case, the game exists as a form while players generate the content throughout the period of presentation. The game has no ideal static state and is not intended as an object merely to be viewed, rather it invites participant 'players' to actively engage with it rendering its contents to be in a continual state of flux. It also resists any 'artistic' monopolization or ownership of works created. A loose documentation of creative acts and contributions during the game is made in form of booklets, much of the participants’ creativity remains undocumented - as players are invited to remove objects collectively created and pass them on - distributing them into public circulation outside the gallery. The concept of the game also develops with each presentation, integrating the experiences of previous exhibitions.

The interactions proposed by different boxes - relating visually to the property squares landed on in the original game - are designed to demonstrate and symbolise features and concepts found to be common in existing examples of small scale practical and large scale theoretical proposals of economic alternatives to market capitalism. These include notions of sharing, gift, exchange, collaboration, solidarity, sustainability and mutual trust.

Sharing is present through the players' participation in their offering of personal experiences and ideas for the 'economy' of the game. 

The notion of the gift is present in the form of boxes from which players can take away objects produced collaboratively by previous players.

Exchange is present:
a.) as players are invited to offer their personal skills and capacities as well as to exchange these for other players' skills and capacities. This aspect of the game is intended to function as a database for real exchanges between players outside the game.
b.) in the form of small interactions between different players as part of the game.

Collaboration is present in 'production chains' integrated into the process - there are boxes that form a chain through which a creative product e.g. a concept, a postcard or a sticker, is completed through a step by step additive process by subsequent players.

Mutual trust is present:
a.) in that players at several junctures in the game don't complete a creative product, but leave their contribution to be modified or transformed and eventually taken away by future players.
b.) in that players are free to take away products of the game, and trusted to perform an act with them i.e. place a postcard in a free postcard box or put a sticker up somewhere in public space etc.

Solidarity is the underlying behavioral foundation of the game, present in every player's engagement to sustain Commonopoly.



Exhibitions:

Wayward Economy (curators: Manray Hsu & Maren Richter), Main Trend Gallery, Taipei, 2005 (catalogue).

More information at: www.bighope.hu/commonopoly
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