Artist Trading Cards
ATC 26, originally uploaded by ART NAHPRO
Check out the tag, Collage Kids atc to find all sorts of cool "Artists Trading Cards" which are collaged pieces of art in the size of playing cards. Apparently, this sub-group is trading their physical cards to each other. If this is the case, a whole economy has sprung up inside of Flickr using the tools and constraints at hand.
Here is the Administrative Body/House of Exchange (the group) - think New York Stock Exchange. This exchange is apparently invite only, curiously creating a limited market. It also appears there is a compeating House of Exchange, but the intereaction between the two I can't speak of. (see update for more info) Here are the Rules of Trade, and the "market" is found distributed across Flickr users who have photo sets with the title "ATCs for Collage Kids" and can be found with the tag CollageKidsATC.
Luckily, Snapatorium has graciously responded to some of my (probably inane) questions about the group. She has answered some of my questions, and was generally informative about the Collage Market:
The Grubbykid: How long has this group been trading?
Snapatorium: I posted the rules for the ATCs on March 31.
The Grubbykid: How many cards have switched hands?
Snapatorium: I set it up by using Flickr folders for individual artists and also tags that would show all available and traded cards at one time. ie: CollageKidsATC and CollageKidsATCTraded. I see 70 cards have been traded. I alone have traded 26 or so already so there might be more if members have forgotten to change their tags.
The Grubbykid: Is there any valuation mechanism besides personal taste?
Snapatorium: No value is given to the cards. It is a free exchange, much in the spirit of mail art. You see something you like, you ask for a trade. There is no obligation to trade.
The Grubbykid: How have the 'rules' evolved?
Snapatorium: I just thought it out and made the rules. I like organizing things and knew that there would have to be set rules for it to work correctly. The most important rule is that you must have work to exchange work.
The Grubbykid: Did I exaggerate anything?
Snapatorium: I would not call your article an exaggeration. However, there are 2 small things I'd like to comment on. The Collage Kids group was started by wastedpapiers and myself. Anyone can join and anyone can trade collage ATCs. The other ATC group deals more with drawings and possibly photocopies of their work, but that's beside the point. It was important for me to keep our ATCs strictly limited to collage and to make them original pieces of art. I also wanted to keep the exchange limited to our group so it would not get out of control. I am very much into swapping things - check out my blog. I used to hold small swaps, but have not had time so these cards are filling the void nicely.
So there you go. It is interesting that in such a small group, there is high level of differentiation between collage and line art which seemingly necessitated two different market economies. I am sure that there are some "bridge" members trading in both, but I wonder how many of those "bridge members" there really are.
There is an amazing level of self-organization found inside a group of 100-or so members. I wonder what the long-term survival of this market will be, being a (semi) closed system, with a limited amount of resources (time & cards). But the size of the system probably is big enough to be self-sustaining.
This group is similar the the Squared Circle group, except in Squared Circle members do not trade, but gift their work to the economy. This proto-gift economy then is used as the grist for other notable projects such as the Squared Circle Poster Project and the Squared Circle Buttons. It is quite fascinating to watch the different economies and interactions happening within a fixed framework. I wonder if we could draw some parallels to evolution from this - parallels to economic theories are numerous, but I wonder if there are deeper themes to trawl from Flickr. Being an armchair commentator, I wonder what sort of themes a real economist and sociologists could pull from these groups, and others on Flickr.
This is all so interesting and I wish them luck, and continued artistic excellence.
I would like to again thank Snapatorium for responding to my questions.
Edited on 07 Apr 2005 for clarity.
Comments
troy says:
i am working on my atc at home if you want to trade with me i would love it
Posted by: troy at August 15, 2005 4:16 PM #
Lisa says:
I would love to trade. Contact me at the e-mail listed above.
Posted by: Lisa at November 3, 2005 7:02 AM #
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This is the permanent home of Artist Trading Cards. I wrote this post at 19:48 on April 6, 2005. This post is part of grubbykid.com, a weblog. If you liked this entry, why don't you read some other posts such as Distributed Citizen Journalism or Sky Ride? Or you could go to the site archives or return home. All are good choices.
