this dollar was on my balls

Yesterday the $20 I received from the ATM bore this message:

I immediately put it in my wallet, vowing not to spend it until I could scan it the next day at work.  It got me thinking, though— could this be considered art?  I know the whole “what is art?” argument gets old for some folks, but humor me.  What most people would consider vandalism or a silly prank is for me a loaded gesture which deliberately places the possessor in the position of having to evaluate their feelings about the bill and its message (no way out of it— that bill is in your hands whether you like it or not and without your consent).  There is a randomness to who might receive the bill out of the ATM and the message/reaction varies with each.   If a straight man receives the bill it is likely that (since this is in the United States) he may have to deal with his internalized homophobia, but if a woman receives the bill the message may serve as a form of delayed sexual assault (I’m not saying it couldn’t also be sexual assault for a man; it could).  Then there is the line of questions about hygiene and disease and misinformation/paranoia about sexually-transmitted infections and public perception of male genitals vs. female genitals… there’s a lot to think about.  And this message has a delayed delivery so that it is anonymous, a hit and run.  The recipient is left to guess at how serious the author is and is unable to ask or respond.

Then there is the next part of the action, when it comes time for the recipient to spend the bill.  S/he is in the position of being able to choose to whom to give the bill and becomes an active agent in putting someone else in the position s/he was just in.  If the spender is a man, the new recipient of the bill is likely to believe that the “speaker” of the message and the spender are one in the same.  How does this make the new recipient feel?  If it is not assumed to be the spender’s message, what sort of exchange takes place?  A mutual discomfort or chuckle at what a third party has done?  I’m very interested in how this cycle might play out and continue over and over.  I’m also interested in what might change in terms of reactions or behavior if the message changes, like if it said “I have a bomb and will blow this place up” or “I just wanted you to know that tonight I will kill myself.”  What are the players’ responsibilities then?

Maybe the question of whether or not it could be art is irrelevent.  It does ask the kind of questions and function in the way that the kind of art I like best does, so there’s that.  I like work that serves as a starting point for endless questions and endless imagining.