Feral Trade is a public experiment trading goods over social networks. The process is called Feral Trade to distinguish it from other protocols (Fair or Free). Its economy is based on other people's activities: how you get from A to B. Feral Trade routes extend across the UK and Europe, using social and cultural hand baggage to transport grocery items intercity, often using other artists and curators as mules. Goods in current circulation include coffee from El Salvador, tea from Bangladesh and Turkish Delight from Montenegro. www.feraltrade.org
Biographies of the artists and the groups:
Kate Rich is an Australian-born artist & trader. In the 1990s she moved to California to work as radio engineer with the Bureau of Inverse Technology (BIT), an international agency producing an array of critical information products including economic and ecological indices, event-triggered webcam networks, and animal operated emergency broadcast devices. The Bureau's work has been exhibited broadly in academic, scientific and museum contexts. Restless at the turn of the century, she headed further east to take up the post of Bar Manager at the Cube Microplex, Bristol UK where she launched Feral Trade, a public experiment trading goods over social networks. Feral Trade forges new "wild" trade routes across hybrid territories of business, art and social interaction. She is currently moving deeper into the infrastructure of cultural economy, developing protocols to define and manage amenities of hospitality, catering, sports and survival in the cultural realm.
