They Urned It, a data sculpture in the shape of the Fed's covid-era balance sheet explosion

While you were dodging covid the Federal Reserve was printing money for the bond market like it was going out of style-- permanently inflating the cost of financial assets (like a house) beyond the reach of your stagnating income. I thought I'd make a sculpture out of that.

They Urned It: a data sculpture in the shape of all the money the Federal Reserve has printed for the international bond market.

 

In the nearly 12 years that the federal minimum wage has stagnated at $7.25 the Federal Reserve has found several occaisions to decisively inflate financial assets by making massive purchases in the bond market, particularly in the past year.

This was a chance to combine my interest in data sculpture and basket weaving. I rotated the Federal Reserve Bank's balance sheet (a measure of the cummulative financial assets the bank has purchased with newly created dollars) around its time-axis to loft an urn-like surface in Grasshopper. Then I plotted geodesic trajectories on the surface (paths on the surface that that straight weaving elements would naturally follow,) also in Grasshopper. The calculated angles of intersection, and distances between intersections were programmed by hand into the aluminum strips by punching notches on the sides.

Mating notches assure that the weaving elements cross at the intended distance  and at the intended angle.

 There are only 28 weaving elements in the basket-- that's not really enough to capture all the detail in the time series, but I'm pretty happy with the covid flare at the top. Material: aluminum flashing; dimensions 24in x 24in x 34in high.

Me weaving They Urned It.