reviews n55 services
Dispenser, October 2007,
polyethylene, 100 x 44 cm.
courtesy collective Gallery,
edinburgh
N55 serviCes
One Mile, cOllective Gallery, edinburGh
OctOber
Established in 1984 by a committee of militant Edinburgh-based artists, design and utopian paper architecture. A no-brand brand, it effectively
Collective is giving its artist-led raison d’être a much needed makeover gives an identity to such swap-shops which is otherwise lacking. While the
by emphasising its vital role as an art agency, reclaiming aspects of its UK is woefully behind Scandinavia and Germany in ‘favour networking’,
collectivist roots with initiatives such as One Mile, a programme of projects Edinburgh is relatively advanced (Edinburgh Freecycle has 12,000
within a one-mile radius of the gallery in the centre of Edinburgh. N55 are members). N55 and One Mile are doing their bit, but their resources are
an excellent choice for such a project. The group are known for their open- no match for those of the state and the private sector, who seize on peer
source manuals designed to improve people’s lives by operating creatively production as an opportunity to offload their responsibilities onto the
within legal loopholes – allowing people to build affordable housing, for ‘cultural services sector’ at little or no cost. Significantly, most of the N55
example – and have also created a viable scheme for opening public access pods I visited were being used as rubbish bins.
to private property. Their ‘manuals’ are freely available to the DIY enthusiast N55 trades as art in another sense that is less visually evident. In
on their website
www.n55.dk Why Artists Are Poor (2004), Hans Abbing demonstrates ways in which
The N55 SERVICES project is simple in essence. N55 offer people the visual arts operate in a gift economy rather than a market or barter
the opportunity to exchange goods and services via a series of pods placed system. The surpluses produced by art’s microeconomies enter the market
around the city. The pods are small geodesic structures that allow the user wherein cultural capital transforms into hard cash. N55 take pains to prevent
to leave gifts anonymously for others to take. This scheme is supported by a a surplus by placing all of their work in the public domain. As N55 are well
workshop in Edinburgh Central Library in which N55 raised consciousness aware, it is also the dominance of the gift economy in the arts that enables
of the culture of swapping. As in most European cities, there are numerous the market economy to exploit the social obligations of public art projects.
networks that do something similar, such as Edinburgh Freecycle and But participation in gift economies can never be total, since, like barter
Edinburgh LETS. N55 are part of this attempt to find local solutions to systems, they are constrained by time, geography and demographics –
global problems through open-source tactics. microeconomies need common macroeconomic means of connection in
Where N55 differ from most ‘copyleftists’, perhaps, is in offering a order to be sustainable. N55 are appealing since they imaginatively engage
visual narrative to what are otherwise invisible exchanges of commodities with the contradictions and gaps of mixed economies rather than dropping
and ideas. N55’s work is marked by a concern with minimalist space-age out or playing the slacker card. Neil Mulholland
145 Artreview
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