Unrealized project for AUP archive submission: US Dollar Incense, 2010 Christian Burnoski
Description
The concept is to make incense-sticks from US dollars, which would cost as much as the number of bills used in making the incense, so that the buyer would be burning the amount of money that he or she paid for it.
Barrier
“US Dollar Incense” was originally conceived in 2010, but was never realized due to the toxicity and potential health risks of the project. The ink on US currency contains highly toxic metals such as mercury, cadmium, zinc and arsenic. This would be poisonous to inhale as smoke and as a fine dust, and therefore not safe to produce nor to burn as incense. For this reason even the US government has problems disposing its old currency.
The incense-sticks would have been created by grinding discarded US currency, which can be bought in bags of shredded bills, to a fine powder and mix it with a neutral binder such as gum-arabic, and then rolled onto bamboo sticks. The price would be based on the weight of the bills used.
Unrealized project for AUP archive submission: US Dollar Incense, 2010 Christian Burnoski
Description
The concept is to make incense-sticks from US dollars, which would cost as much as the number of bills used in making the incense, so that the buyer would be burning the amount of money that he or she paid for it.
Barrier
“US Dollar Incense” was originally conceived in 2010, but was never realized due to the toxicity and potential health risks of the project. The ink on US currency contains highly toxic metals such as mercury, cadmium, zinc and arsenic. This would be poisonous to inhale as smoke and as a fine dust, and therefore not safe to produce nor to burn as incense. For this reason even the US government has problems disposing its old currency.
The incense-sticks would have been created by grinding discarded US currency, which can be bought in bags of shredded bills, to a fine powder and mix it with a neutral binder such as gum-arabic, and then rolled onto bamboo sticks. The price would be based on the weight of the bills used.