Visible Hand

«Visible Hand» is an online work in which one sees a simple image of a hand, something like an icon, composed of typographic characters in the manner of ASCII art, using the viewing techniques of early computers. However, in this case the figures and letters that make up the image are dynamic and changing: they are generated in real time according to the ups and downs of the global stock market. What was originally a fixed image changes according to the volume of financial transactions, which feeds and, at the same time, alters the image. Caught between the digital and the financial, and between two forms of representation, the image of the hand seems to continually struggle for its own visibility and its uncertain reality. Whose hand is it? Does it mean something? Is it asking for help? Is it the hand of a protester? Or that of a trader? Simply calling out or showing the number 5 with his fingers, reminding us that counting with our fingers (digits) is the basis of the digital. In any case, this is not Adam Smith´s hand, the «Invisible Hand» that supposedly regulates global markets.

With the support of the Institut Français Madrid.