My work WINDFALL occupies the walking areas of the main foyer of the new NEDCOR building in Sandton, Johannesburg – a little more than half a football field in size. The work is situated on different floor-levels as accessed through the main entrance and developing along the escalators onto higher levels.

I have chosen the name WINDFALL, a name that plays on other, rather romantic words like rainfall and snowfall where one may actually see the visual effects of a natural falling. A windfall, in its original sense, is something blown down by the wind – a branch, a fruit, often something useful or tasty. In fact a windfall has come to denote

a lucky find, a valuable coin in the road, an un-expected benefit in business, a fortuitous earn-ing or surprising profit.

The coming up and dying down of wind underlie the rising and falling of investment oppor-tunities, and the unseen nature of wind is in keeping with the abstract nature of monetary concerns. Like the winds they can be flexible, flighty, unexpected or enduring. Wind operates in the same safe or risky trajectories as the routes along which the investor and entrepreneur navigate the ship of their expectations and resources. The strength and potential of these forces are constantly assessed should they turn out to be sudden blasts, slight breezes or strong currents. As with the venture of financial assets, the wind carries with it elements of surprise and unpredictability in need of informed manage-ment. Although the wind “bloweth where it listeth” it can be expertly harnessed.

Wind is as universal as the chance to turn sleeping opportunities to gain. It is everywhere, and in every place its unique make-up offers the moment that can be seized for fortune or ruin. The seasoned investor knows that fiscal breezes bring rain or snow. Wind propels the windmill and distributes the pollen of flowers, but it can also work havoc and cause disastrous tragedy. Each

wind has a predictability or ‘style’ all of its own but it can also have ‘mood-swings’ and a capriciousness that makes depending on it a nightmare. The French philosopher Claude Lévi-Strauss refers to policies of random endeavour as a

“contingency of the inciden-tal and the coincidental.”

To install WINDFALL I sandblasted 160 unfamiliar words, eighty for winds and eighty for issues of monetary concern, onto different odd-shaped rectilinear flagstone blocks of granite – to capture the most fugitive element within the most concrete – ‘wind’ on stone. The 160 arcane names of winds and economic terms were selected from my dictionary of difficult English containing over 18,000 entries. The winds are sandblasted in shiny black lettering onto a grey granite and the monetary terms in grey lettering onto a shiny black granite. The strange words must create the idea of messages on scraps of paper carried in from above and beyond. The stones have accidental shapes, almost like clumsy snow-crystals and are scattered across the floor of the walking area as if blown in by the wind – like sparsely shed leaves under a tree, or like thinly sprinkled salt on food – a windfall.

To give WINDFALL a universal feel, winds from all over the world are laid down on the floor. Wind tends to ignore man-made boundaries almost in the same way as the financial wizard adventurously courts good fortune in far-away places. The wind is often hard to understand and so is the world of finance. Preference is given to

names like MELTEMI (a north-west wind in Turkey and Greece), EURUS (the east-wind), AFER (a south-west wind), PHEFO (Northern Sotho for wind), UMOYA (wind in the Nguni Languages of South Africa), EMBAT (a wind that blows from Turkey across Egypt) and KATABURAN (a hot, miserable wind in Asia).

I the eighty words related to the economy are as perplexing as those for winds. These arcane words are brain-teasers, lying around for someone to unravel. Luck plays a part in selecting a sound investment portfolio, but it is after all the genius who is able to decode, the one who figures things out, who will make the most intelligent and salient choice. Words like OLIGOPOLY (a market dominated by few sellers and many pro-ducers), UMKHOKHI (Zulu for one who makes payments) QUOMODOCUNCIZATION (the making of money in any possible way) and CAPELOCRACY (the rule of retail dealers), are used.

WINDFALL is made accessible to visitors by a touch-screen computer installed in the vicinity. It provides a brief explanation of the work and the abstruse words with their definitions are also given.

WINDNAMES

AEOLUS The wind in Greek mythology, also personified as a god.
AFER The south-west wind in Europe. Afer is Latin for' African'.
ANEMOS Greek for wind. Anemology is the science of winds.
AQUH.oN An ancient Greek name for the north wind.
AUSTER A dry, hot south wind -related to the word austere.
RAGUIO Spanish for a whirlwind that carries lots of sand and debris.
RISE A dry, cutting north-north-east wind in Switzerland and nearby France.
RWRE A blasting, gusty wind -a tempest.
RORASCO A sudden nasty squall of wind, a child of Boreas.
BOREAS The north wind, after the Greek god of the same name.
CAURUS Latin for the ghastly and stonny north-west wind.
CHEUDONIAS Greek for a wind that brings swallows in springtime.
CHINOOK A dry, turbulent wind on the east side of the Rocky Mountains.
EMBAT An enduring wind blowing from Turkey to southern Egypt.
ESINTI Turkish for a breeze or light draught of air.
ETESIAN A steady drift of the lower atmosphere over the eastern Mediterranean
EUROCLYDON A stormy, blustering condition -'east wind' in Greek.
EURUS In Europe, a wind from the east. The east wind is the god Euros.
FAVONWS The west wind, so named in Latin hecause it isfavourable.
FENG A Chinese name for wind. Feng-shui is a winter lifestyle.
FOEHN A moist, cool wind turning pleasantly warm in Alpine valleys.
FURACAO The Portuguese name for a hurricane. In Spanish it is huracan.
II GAU II GAU In the extinct /Xam language, the wind when it blows very strongly.
GHIBLI A hot, dusty wind blowing from Libya's highlands to the Mediterranean.
GREGALE The north-east wind in the Mediterranean - the Greco in Greece.
HAAR Miserably wet fog on the east coast of England and Scotland.
HALCYON A time of windless calm when halcyon-birds nest on the open sea.
HARMATTAN An intolerable, scorching and dusty wind in Upper Guinea

WINDNAMES

HORTUM A Turkish word for a whirlwind
IEPOGODA The Serbian word for a terrible stonn. Vetar is wind.
ISIVUNGUVUNGU The Zulu word for a violent storm. To blow is -phephetha.
KARABURAN A rniserabl e, hot and dusty wind in eastern parts of Turkey.
KASIRGA A Turkish word for a whirlwind.
KHAMSIN An oppressive, hot wind that blows desert sand allover Egypt.
KRAKATOA A layer of winds that encircle the earth in the lower stratosphere.
K'i A general Chinese word for wind or breath.
KURMAK Turkish for wind-up. A lion can't smell its prey when it grazes kurmak.
KGWANYAPE Tswana for a stonn -phefo is the ~rd for wind.
LESTE Portuguese for the east wind that blows red dust from Africa over Madeira.
LEVANTER A strong and chopping easterly wind in the MediterraneaIl
LEVECHE A blistering wind from north Africa that blows in soutb-east Spain.
LUMUYA In Venda, a soft breeze that airs the home or blows gently on the cheek.
MADUMBU A Venda name for a hurricane, a wind that can blow a house a_yo
MELTEMI A north-west wind blowing 40 days a year in Greece and Turkey.
MISTRAL A cold, dry and blustering wind that blows in southern France.
MONSSOEN Afrikaans for one of the wet or dry seasonal winds of southern Asia.

FINANCIAL TERMS

AERARIAN In ancient Rome, the poorest citizen who contributes to the treasury.
AGINATOR One who sells odds and ends at flea markets or informal street stalls.
ALMOIGN A chest with money for the poor.
ALNASCBAR One who is unemployed because of always dreaming about splendour
ARGENTOCRACY Government by the wealthy
ARGYROTIIECOLOGY The care or collecting of money boxes and piggy-banks
BONIFICATION A general financial improvement by the lowering of taxes.
BOUQUINISM A trading and exchanging in secondhand books.
CAPELOCRACY The rule of shopkeepers and retail dealers
CATALLACnCS International politics of exchange in monetary units or shares.
CHREMATOMANIA An inordinate obsession with making money
CHRYSOLOGY The science of gold or of political economy and wealth.
CIMEUARCIIY A treasury for the safekeeping of precious items.
COBDENISM A policy of free trade and international cooperation and trust.
CRAMER One who sells goods at a booth, a hawker, or retail salesman.
DANISM An old word for the lending of money in demand for a return-dividend.
DEFENERATION A charge of excessive interest
DEPORT Afrikaans for a percentage paid by a seller of stock for delaying delivery.
DIVmsM The condition of having an overabuldance of assets as with magnates.
EGESTUOSITY The state of being very poor A monk lives an egestuose life.
ERGATOCRACY A government by the workers. In Greek an ergates is a worker.
ESTOVERS The necessary things in a deal that are not exactly mentioned.
EUCUONISM Extreme stinginess and selfishness -money-pinching.
FENERATOR A money lender. Afeneratitious institution often lends unfairly.
FICTURE A old name for a counterfeit object such as a banknote or painting.
FRANKPLEDGE Financial care in a group aiming to share the profits and losses.
GABELLE A troublesome duty -once a special tax on salty foods, fruit or wine.
GIESETRYE An old word for stealing sacred articles in order to sell them.

FINANCIAL TERMS

GOMBEENISM An Irish-English word for extorting money or for lending unfairly.
GRIMTHORPE The restoring of old buildings with a lot of money and no sense
GUICBET The bars or hatch through which tickets are sold and money is issued
ICBTHYOPOUSM A trading in fish and fish products.
IMPIGNORATION The act of pledging money or possessions -a pawning.
IMPRESTING The act of lending money- a loan or an advanced salary.
INCUBO One who broods jealously over his wealth, whilst coveting more.
INGUBU Zulu or Xhosa for secondhand items for sale such as blankets and clothes.
JETTON A small chip or token of metal or plastic used in phones or slotmachines.
LACBANOPOLY The trade of greengrocers. To lachanize is to gather vegetables.
MALETOLT An old legal teml for an unjust and really heavy tax.
MEED Payment, wages or compensation. A meedless act goes unrewarded.
METABLETICS The financial practice of bartering.
MODIATION An old tax levied on luxuries such as wine and liquor