The $53, 823.24 Question

A “Population Animation”

122 Responses collected March 7th-23rd
in Portland, OR, and Long Beach, WA

The $53,823.24 Question is a submission-based animation project launched on March 7th, 2024, during the Pacific Northwest College of Art’s First Thursday event, alongside several gallery show openings and performances. This project prompted participants to take a card that asks the question “What is the fastest way to get $53,823.24?” and respond to it as they see fit, submitting it to a ballot box, from which I then collected the responses, sequenced them, and turned them into an animation. The resulting animation, then, formed a composite answer to the posed question that reveals latent answers in the form of visual synchronicities, graphic affects, and other unpredicted details. 

Many of the content and narrative details of The $53,823.24 Question project were influenced by reading Claire La Berge’s Wages Against Artwork, which thoughtfully discusses artists who turn to their own debt, often as a result of the increasing costs of post-secondary education and the proliferation of MFA programs as a viable trajectory for art-makers, as a medium for their work. At the end of my own unpaid “career” as a student who spent some sum of money that was never actually possessed, I ask participants to reconsider that sum in a way that makes it more tangible and actionable.