Vending Machine from Ellie Harrison on Vimeo.
I’m not exactly sure what to make of this but I’m still intrigued by it’s potential. I’m also a bit confused by the overall political message that this contraption sends me as well. Is that not the sign of true art? I’m not sure. This vending machine is powered by BBC News and RSS feeds, when news of the recession hits, a bag of chips drops (or should I say “crisps”?). Pretty simple, and when you really read into it, I believe there is some significant political satire happening here. Whatever the angle is on humor, it’s definitely British. Regardless, I do find the idea of operating machinery via my RSS/twitter feeds to be very useful as well as a significant future tech trend. There have been many interesting twitter/web-data powered inventions that have surfaced in the past year, this one reminds me of an invention created by pet owners to remotely feed their dogs. Most of the inventions I have seen revolve around the idea of completing simple tasks, however, I do foresee more relevant and useful ideas to come.
Past posts on web enabled inventions:
Baker tweet -> alerts for bakeries
Augmented Reality T-shirt -> posting tweets
Thermostat invention -> on inhabitat.com
Notes from Vimeo:
Ellie Harrison – April 2009
Film documenting an installation at the Viewpoint Gallery, Plymouth College of Art, which resulted from my period as ‘artist in residence’ at the college in 2009.
An old vending machine is reprogrammed to only release packets of crisps when news relating to the recession makes the headlines on the BBC News RSS feed
For more information please visit:
ellieharrison.com/index.php?pagecolor=3&pageId=project-vendingmachine
