What if pixels were free? What if they could trade their computer-given red, green, and blue values in pursuit of a profit?

The Colour Economy imagines an artificial economy of pixels, in which individual 'traders' exchange colour.

In this pixel performance, the seed image creates a region in the bottom right which is wealthier than the regions surrounding it.

As the economy develops, this wealthy population separates itself physically from the traders with little colour capital.

In this sequence, the two groups eventually come together as they run out of resources and wander. There is no inflow of colour in this economy, and there is a 'cost of living' tax deducted from each trader - so, eventually all of the traders end up bankrupt.

The Colour Economy is a project by Jer Thorp (blprnt.com) and was built with Processing v. 0135.