Goodnight Rock
UIC School of Design
It was recently announced that the one-cent coin is set to be retired. Regardless of when the U.S. Mint ceases production, the penny will remain in our material world as a familiar fossil layered with multiple meanings and histories. Goodnight Rock is a research publication and multimedia installation investigating the outmoded penny. Like the coin itself, both the book and the digital image raise questions of reproduction and value. Does the legibility of ubiquitous commodities lead to greater understanding or just the opposite?
Goodnight Rock zooms in, out, and around the penny to see it as a poetic and political object of growing complexity. Valued at just $0.01, it sits at the bottom of the economic food chain. We know where the chain begins, but where does it end? In a profit-driven economy, what can the humble one-cent coin reveal about broader systems of power?
