Creative Capital

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Laura Carton is interested in the concepts of transparency and corporate accountability. With support from Creative Capital, her ongoing, multi-faceted work, Investor Relations, attempts to make transparent how several leading American companies are indirectly invested in the adult entertainment industry—a fact that investors might not realize when purchasing stock. TimeWarner, for instance, has affiliates that show pornography on pay-per-view stations. “U.S. corporations are more invested in the adult entertainment industry than the general public realizes,” Carton says.

The key component of Investor Relations is a business Carton formed called Pump & Dump, registered as a limited-liability corporation, and its complex website, www.ipumpandump.com. The name is a double entendre—a reference to sexual acts and to a specific type of financial fraud. As defined by the Securities and Exchange Commission, “pump and dump” schemes involve misleading statements, usually posted online, that promote a company’s inexpensive stock as more valuable than it is. After hyping the stocks, schemers profit by selling the relatively cheap shares at inflated prices.

Referencing this financial world term, Pump & Dump, LLC, which functions as an investment club, will buy stock in publicly traded companies that are involved in adult entertainment. These include the obvious makers of adult films and related media, such as Playboy Enterprises and New Frontier Media—and more surprising ones, such as TimeWarner and Hilton Hotels, which don’t come immediately to mind when one thinks of pornography.

Why an investment club as a conceptual artwork? “The project is not just about creating objects,” Carton explains, pointing out that the club offers an educational platform as well. “The club becomes a space of production, where issues of site, audience, and the social network of art are explored.” She sees it as a creative, social space in which members actively engage in a dialogue and collectively decide on the course of their investments.

Carton has dealt with the subject of pornography before. In earlier, photo-based work, she digitally erased bodies from still frames of adult movies and presented empty sets as the final compositions. As she was researching the companies that produce and distribute adult entertainment films, she started to connect the dots between the pornography world and mainstream American corporations. “This work is not pro-porn or con-porn,” says Carton. “That’s not the issue. It’s about corporate exposure. It’s also about showing the public that their purchases might play a role in supporting the industry.”

The cost of joining the Pump & Dump Investment Club amounts to $300 annually. Anyone can join, although membership is limited to twenty-five. Members can be located anywhere, and are generally recruited via word of mouth. All members must make a one-year commitment, after which they can cash out. The ipumpanddump.com website, scheduled to go live in 2007, will feature live Webcasts of the club’s meetings in New York, where Carton is based, in which members discuss their investment decisions (remote investors can participate via online chats). Quarterly reports on the club’s holdings will also be posted online. All legal paperwork and documentation serve as Carton’s “working drawings” as well.

Carton’s use of commercial culture as subject matter recalls elements of Pop Art. And the directness of her approach also evokes the social engagement found in the contemporary installations of Thomas Hirschhorn and Hans Haacke, which often deal with controversial political topics and imagery. Carton herself cites The Yes Men as an influence, and like them, she aims at the probing analysis of a real-world experience via engaging in that very experience.

“Money is both my material and my mode of production,” she says, identifying yet another intriguing and timely layer to her work, which clearly blends the hyper-commercial side of contemporary art with commerce itself. “The piece is also, ultimately, art about art as commodity.”

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