A book, a pair of art shows, an uncannily familiar psuedonym, a car and more than a little number crunching are causing quite a stir at Crane Arts and beyond for the sweeping project “Infinity is the Enemy” by artist/author t. Rutt. Armed with a Dadaist sensibility, a background in finance and more than a few grand ideas about paradigms in economics, science and art, t. Rutt ushers in a Duchampian coup against the idea of infinity as used by big finance and Wall Street’s misuse of physics and hard science for its own ends.

t. Rutt, “Foreverland Fudge Flusher.”

While to many of us the mathematics behind the Black-Scholes model of financial markets may seem convoluted and difficult to crack, that is actually vaguely the point here. Most of contemporary derivatives pricing is based on the idea of infinite time, which, as we can all surmise, is a bit ludicrous. Anticipating limitless growth ultimately leads to problems down the road, and anyone who lived through the economic woes of 2008 knows that something is awry with the systems in play. t. Rutt takes it upon himself to critique the powers-that-be, and although the project initially reeks of something that walked out of an Occupy Wall Street encampment, the artist has the knowledge to back up his claims. Instead of picketing, t. Rutt fights fire with fire and asserts that, perhaps a better model would be time approaching 1/∞. t. Rutt, “Infinity is the Enemy.”

Undoubtedly digging into his text of the same name would prove to further illustrate his points, but for the visual and conceptual among us, t. Rutt provides a glut of objects and commodities in the wake of his economic theories. Like Marcel Duchamp’s “r. Mutt” signed urinal, the artist here provides toilet seats instead. In pouches on the wall, t. Rutt displays toilet seats available for purchase (or for free if you happen to be one of the economic minds that they are tagged and waiting for, George Soros and Robert C. Merton among them). t. Rutt will offer to buy the seats back in order to set up a system of ‘price discovery’ where by the true value of these art objects can be established; he’s literally putting his money where his mouth is and offering a working method to test his ideas. On the flip, a single, open seat (strangely reminiscent of the infinity lemniscate symbol: ∞) entitled “Foreverland Fudge Flusher” is hidden in a dimly lit fabric room, and seems more like a religious artifact than an artwork. The characters that define the time element of the Black-Scholes model are written along its sleek white contours, but its primary role as the lid for a toilet remains overwhelmingly present. Representing the concept that this equation as it stands should be flushed away, the markings spiral out until they revert to his alterations, utilizing its mockery and fluidity to subvert the strict t=∞ notion. Pillows affixed with the infinity symbol.

Through explorations in the infinite, t. Rutt emblazons a number of other objects with the symbol and examines its social and semiotic roles in our everyday lives and our imaginations. Running with the idea of the unlimited, he charges headfirst into environmental territory by covering Tesla cars in the equations he scrutinizes elsewhere in his “The Corrected Tablets,” further undermining these financial mores. Clearly, natural resources are not inexhaustible, and by showcasing Tesla’s use of physics to solve real human dilemmas instead of controlling markets, he illustrates that economics is neither infallible nor omnipotent, but rather flexible and pragmatic when seen in the right light. In the lobby, a Tesla car covered in “bad financial physics.”

This barely scratches the surface of the ambitious and ongoing project “Infinity is the Enemy.” t. Rutt’s work will be on display at Crane Arts through March 31 and also by appointment at the New York City location (contact Mary Mihelic at 917-969-0222 for more information). He is also offering a $20,000 prize to anyone who can prove or disprove whether physics or infinite time can possibly exist or be relevant in financial theory, so in many ways, the fun has only just begun…

The Crane Arts Building is located at 1400 North American St., Philadelphia; [email protected]; cranearts.com.