|
| |
Other Worlds/Other Ways
There are many people who manage in many different ways to live without money.
There are those who, for instance, rather than making it a way of life, they have made it a work of art (sure, you can live on it too…).
One such person is French artist Mathieu Laurette, born in 1970, who took part in a 1993 television gameshow called Tournez manège (Dating Game), and proclaimed himself a multimedia artist and kicked off his career as a man “kept” by the mechanisms of showbusiness society. Taking advantage of the “complete satisfaction or your money back” aspect of advertising, he has managed to live without spending a single Euro for ten years, as one of his gallery assistants assures us!
Read more on or listen to Mathieu while he explains his “work”.
Kyle MacDonald is doing something similar to Laurette, although he doesn’t pretend what he does is art. His aim? To exchange a red paperclip for a house. From 12 July 2005 to now he has managed to exchange his paperclip for a year’s rent of a house in Phoenix! Find out how it will all end on the blog.
And there are those who are not happy with being forever unsatisfied and reimbursed, or exchanging impossible objects without ever reaching for their wallets. Danny Wallace, or King Danny as he is known, has decided to create his own nation, LOVELY, and obviously he mints his own money. Lovelymoney is called IOU, which stands for Interdependent Occupational Unit, and King Danny dispenses it to whoever dedicates a part of their time to Lovely, even if it is simply sending an email or posting something on his blog. In fact this is a good excuse to explain how local or complementary money works.
But one idea open to anyone, which doesn’t call for artistic leanings or wacky web ideas, is traveling for next to nothing. The biggest association for worldwide hospitality exchange is called SERVAS and you can bet that most of its members could tell you something about Time Banks…
If you prefer a less demanding trip where the exchange of hospitality doesn’t imply an exchange of opinions (or maybe just gossip) you can find what you want through a simple house exchange (via a site like Homeexchange.com or Exchangehomes.com - but there are many more). For those who are up for all kinds of fun perhaps Couchsurfing, would be the best idea. And if you didn’t even want to spend a bean on the actual trip, you can hitchhike online via Hitchhikers.org.
Send us other practical ideas for doing away with money!
(09/06/2006)
print
|
|
|
|
|
