Platform for (un)Solicited Research and Advice

Nayruz Holdings

A fictitious holdings company, created by Jordanian artist, Oraib Toukan. The company proposes to auction off the Middle East in the year 2012,

based on a 100-year leasehold, factoring in inflation and perceptions of political and economic risk now and in the future. Toukan assesses each county’s risk, by consulting various game theorists, image consultants and diplomatic representatives, in order to gain a plausible picture of the sellability of the the various Middle Eastern countries. Her corporate intervention was presented in 2009 at the Istanbul Biennial, under the name, “The Equity is in the Circle” (2007-2009) where she included video interviews, email correspondence, and her very own branding campaign for Nayruz- with the slogan being: “Own this view, and everything in it.”

www.oraibtoukan.com

WTO

Generally WTO is the abbreviation for the World Trade Organisation. However, culture jamming activists called “The Yes Men” placed a fake WTO website, at the domain www.gatt.org, posing as the WTO, in order to bring “corrected” information about the activities of the real organisation. Subsequently, they we invited by several organisations and conferences in order to give lectures to an audience, such as at the International Payments Conference on April 28, 2005, where they proposed to the audience that they should purchase a golden suit, they claimed would allow productivity to increase, as managers would not have to oversee workers in person but could keep track of them via images on an attached screen as well as implanted sensors.

www.yesmen.org