The Time Notes project involves a series of actions in public spaces using a new monetary system based on time units, 1 year bills, 60 minutes, etc. The back of these bills present different quotes, about money or time, written by philosophers, writers or economists.
Starting off with one first launch action developed in Berlin, other actions took place in different cities, Singapore, Rostock, Vigo, Munich, Mexico, Buenos Aires. In each case people started to discuss the different local problems related to the currency system of exchange and how people experience and perceive time.
The proposal for MADRID ABIERTO engages with the opening of a Mobile Office and a Central Office based in Casa de America.
The Mobile Office will travel daily from the central space in Casa de America taking three main routes: 1. the North segment, going from Paseo de Recoletos towards Paseo de la Castellana; 2. the South line, through Paseo del Prado towards Atocha's Station, and 3. the Western line, which will go through Calle Alcalá to Plaza Mayor, eventually drifting down other streets, deviating from the main arteries.
The Mobile Office will offer two types of services that `banks´ commonly render: Reimbursement of time that has been lost, and Loans of time. The Office, through its system of lost time reimbursement, presents itself as a place for reception and classification of time which has been transferred involuntarily, under pressure or for arbitrary reasons. In other words, time wasted attending to an unwanted job, time lost in the wrong relationship, time spent while serving in the army, etc.
In the Mobile Office, a Time Notes representative will register descriptions of how the deponents lost their time, and reimburse the deponent with a bill of the corresponding value. The reason for the loss of time will be printed on the back. Also, an online data base with the compiled information will be created.
In a similar manner, through a Time Loan service, the Office presents its credit line for the concretion of postponed wishes. Starting off with the question: "If you had a minute, an hour, an extra year in your life, ¿what would you do?" it involves a reflection about our use of time and those things we constantly leave for a better moment in the future. All the information delivered by the bank's `clients´, will be daily transmitted to the Time Notes website: www.timenoteshouse.org
The Central Office, established as an operational base and information centre, which will be situated in the Dolls' Room of Casa de America, will serve for several uses and purposes: thanks to an updated map, it will offer information about the routes, schedules and itineraries of the Mobile Office. Central Office will receive the video signal from the Mobile Office wherever it may be. A customer service section will be installed, offering the same services as the Mobile Office.
The Office will also offer documental information, videos, bills and other documents of what has previously occurred in the Mobile Office as well as in other stages of the Time Notes project. A centre will be created for the reception, discussion and bibliographic consultancy of reference material related to problems of money, new alternative exchange systems and other financial theories. This centre will also serve as location for the Mobile Office once it has finished its daily route.