5% for the art

The change that happened the year 2011, when I didn’t have to pay my tuition for
Academy of Fine arts any more, has left me with a surplus of money on my bank
account. I have been handling that money very methodically, calculating the process
of everyday spending in the most economical way. Self control and minimizing my
consuming for money accumulation, with the fact that I didn’t make that money with
my art work but with extracurricular work, have led me to change of perception of the
process of money circulation.
I see this accumulated earned money as an empty material without meaning. I put
aside 5% of every payment I get, and invest them in my art work, but as a material.
In the first phase of the work, I simply marked the money with my registry information
(how long did I work for that money, where have i been working and who payed
me), framed it and prevented it from circulating. In the second phase, I am treating
the money as a phisical material. With minimalistic college and dealing with details
of the banknotes, their visual identity and estetic characteristics are changed, a
certain amount of information is hidden and it rises the question of their exchange
value.
The fact remains that, no matter how much I intervene on the money itself, it still
retains the initial aura of power that comes from it’s exchange value. How much
intervention is needed to erase that power, when does the paper that holds the official
financial status becomes just paper again? In which conditions can that phisical material
become an art piece? And in which way does it regains financial value regarding to the valuation of the economic sector of art market?