Rather than turning art into a commodity, Fiona Banner does quite the opposite. When we start from the beginning, books were never meant to be a commodity. But as soon as the printing press made books mass market media, supply and demand exploded, and books became a worldwide necessity. What I was surprised to learn about was that even though books had been widely printed—and even more so since the Industrial Revolution—it wasn’t until 1967 that “the ISBN was initiated in the United States” (Borsuk 242). Truthfully, I did not know how much information the ISBN held, such as the sale, distribution, origin, publisher, title, and edition. I understood the number was used to indicate the specific book, but I never paid any mind to how much it actually documented.

To know that the ISBN is simply a method to track the commodification of a book, it is almost like the dehumanization of a book. Like a book has been imprisoned, assigned a number, and that’s what it’s better known for by sellers. Our demand for these items through the fetishization of books has created the book as a simple, predictable object that we purchase at a moment’s notice. In our world of consumerism, at least there are still unique producers like Fiona Banner, virtually turning herself into a commodified book by “tattooing ‘ISBN 0-9548366-7-7’ on her lower back” (243). While this number signifies lack of individuality (suggesting that there are more people just like her—different versions of herself), it also shows a sense of ownership of self. This act is a form of art and revolution, destroying the concept of predictability. Just to test it out, I copied this ISBN into Google and discovered I could not buy it. Fiona Banner has created a break in the system of commodification. It’s not possible to buy her ISBN, she already owns herself.

As much as we like to fulfill supply and demand, forever and ever, it is simply a man-made concept. It makes complete sense for us to create something that virtually dismantles the idea of art and beauty only for us to deconstruct that idea with art and beauty.