The most elementary Marxist doctrine teaches us that two forces of expansion drive the capitalist system: a geographical expansion (imperialism, globalization) and a sectorial expansion often referred to as "commodity fetishism." In its conquering dynamics, capitalism is said to try to leach into all aspects of our daily life, seeking to govern our behavior and transform all human interactions into commercial transactions. This ongoing invasion of our intimate thoughts and feelings by “the market” has become a privileged material for contemporary art. French digital artist Maurice Benayoun joined the trend and created an insightful yet fun interactive installation that deals with our anxiety towards money and the future of our Western societies.His Emotion Vending Machine looks like any vending machine you’d typically find scattered around the world’s offices, schools and shopping centers. It works exactly in the same way—a handy container that dispenses all kinds of consumer goods in exchange for a few dollars or coins. The only difference is that, in this instance, the goods in question are human emotions.Users, turned "customers," may pick their desired selection among a large list of emotions within the frame of dynamic cards re-actualized in real time based on web data. These emotions can be mixed and ambiguous (not unlike your real, actual emotions) and are rendered in the form of “musical cocktails” generated by the machine. For example, if you want a sophisticated mix of "nervous exhaustion," "confused impatience" and "desire to be somewhere else"—say it's Monday morning—or a cocktail of "self indulgence," "childish joy" and "optimism"—on Friday nights—the result will be a unique customized card read as a partition and “based on an interpretation which the machine strives to decipher.” You then just have to plug your USB key or mp3 player into the machine to get your own daily shot of mixed emotions. Well, to be honest, there aren't that many programmed emotions in the device and the current selection is quite basic, but the numerous and virtually infinite remix possibilities are well enough to cover a vast emotional spectrum.
The music pieces were composed by French artist Jean-Baptiste Barrière, and the software was developed by Evolutie (Brigit Lichtenegger), V2 Lab, Artem Baguinski, with the support of EESI, V2, and the joint research laboratory CITU from Universités Paris I (Sorbonne)– Paris VIII and ARCADI for the production.The Emotion Vending Machine will be displayed again at the "Bouillants," an arts festival set in Bretagne, France (Brittany) this April.Photos courtesy of M.Benayoun 2011
Advertisement