The Treasure Hunt

Abstract

The artistic research project The Treasure Hunt is an speculative investigation into the reward-oriented logics of contemporary capitalism, where treasure refers to both the ‘cultural treasures’ of the art market and the everyday incentives of the nudge economy. Drawing on the tradition of the essay film, but attempting to expand it both spatially and conceptually, the project explores the connections between an array of seemingly disparate phenomena: the global antiquities trade, the history of metal detecting, the expansion of cognitive capitalism, and the legacies of behaviourism in everyday ‘gamification’ of contemporary globalised culture, ranging from leisure to war.