Month: July 2010

Stub: Jafagirls’ Wacky Art Ball Machine

Post author By matt
Post date July 25, 2010
4 Comments on Stub: Jafagirls’ Wacky Art Ball Machine

I have developed a sudden and unexpected love for Yellow Springs, Ohio. Just look at the Yellow Springs Arts Council’s website, or the Yellow Springs Arts blog and see all the creative things that happen there. Now consider that Yellow Springs isn’t a big city. It’s a village of under 4,000 people!

It could be something in the DNA. Yellow Springs was founded by Utopian Socialist Robert Denton who believed that “all religions are based on the same ridiculous imagination, that make man a weak, imbecile animal; a furious bigot and fanatic; or a miserable hypocrite.” It was a final stop on the Underground Railroad. It’s the birthplace of work study, a program that allows many students to attend college who couldn’t otherwise afford it. It also has had an ordinance against discrimination based on sexual preference since 1979. It sounds like Yellow Springs has a long history of being awesome! I really want to go visit someday. Maybe we’ll make it a stop on our cross-country trip next year!

I never would have discovered Yellow Springs had it not been for Jafagirls’ Art Ball Machine.

Some fine products found inside the Art Balls (click to enlarge):

The Art Ball Machine is just one project of the Jafagirls. The Jafagirls are by Corrine Bayraktaroglu (aka Jafabrit), Nancy Mellon and a variety of cohorts. The acronym stands for “Just Another F$%#@*g Artist.” For a small group they’re very active. Their activities include knit graffiti and Free Art Fridays where they create artwork and leave it in the streets for people to find & take home. Take a minute and browse their site to see the fun things they’re up to. One thing I love about their work is it does something artists forget to do all too often: have fun. In these stressful times, perhaps the boldest statement you can make is to remind people the world doesn’t have to be a horrible place.

Yellow Springs and the Jafagirls really inspire me. When you live somewhere without a big population, you tend to make apologies and excuses, like, “If only we were big enough to have a real art scene…” But tiny Yellow Springs has an art scene that rivals much bigger cities! We also think that creative groups need to have a lot of members creating artworks that sell for lots of money in order to have any real impact, and yet Jafagirls’ works get featured in books, magazines, newspapers and other media.

I guess it’s time for us up here in Maine to get off our butts and makes stuff… and make stuff happen!

vending machine art history

Passive Aggressive Anger Release Machine

Post author By matt
Post date July 19, 2010
2 Comments on Passive Aggressive Anger Release Machine

Yarisal and Kublitz’s ‘Passive Aggressive Anger Release Machine’ takes a different spin on art vending. Here, the vending machine is the art itself, and it vends the experience of watching china smash.

“Experience the most satisfying feeling when a piece of China breaks into million pieces . All you have to do is insert a coin, and a piece of China will Slowly move forwards and fall into the bottom of the machine, breaking, and leaving you happy and relieved of anger.”

Passive Aggressive Anger Release Machine by Yarisal & Kublitz

It’s an interactive readymade, with participants paying for the piece to destroy itself. I guess there would be a certain satisfaction in that! Source: todayandtomorrow.net

Op Ed

iBanksy: Please tell me this is real!

Post author By matt
Post date July 18, 2010
No Comments on iBanksy: Please tell me this is real!

iBanksy is a vending machine created by iArtistLondon that sells stencils of Banksy graffiti and a can of spraypaint for just £9.99!

When it comes to ideas striking the right note, this is a complete symphony! It might be just a hoax, but even if it is, it’s still a brilliant idea.

What does it mean when the work of an artist whose work sells at auction for upwards of £1 million can be reproduced by anyone with a stencil and a can of spraypain? What is relevant about the art? Is it the content, or the artist? What is “real” art? It’s not a simple question. One might assume that an “authentic” Banksy would mean that he cut the stencil and spraypainted the wall himself. This particular standard of authorship is far from universal. Most of the grand masters had teams of assistants working for them. A painting by Monet might actually have been done by Team Monet, with the majority of actual brush strokes made by anonymous assistants. Since Banksy encourages people to appropriate his images and reproduce them however they see fit, couldn’t these faux Banksys be seen as his assistants, and all reproductions of Banksy’s work real Banksy? If Banksy himself cut the stencil and handed it to someone else to spray, would it be real? If Banksy bought a stencil at JoAnn’s Fabrics and stenciled it himself, would that be real?

At the same time, we’re actually assuming that there is a real Banksy. Banksy chooses to remain anonymous. Banksy could actually be a group of people claiming to be the same individual, like Alan Smithee. Further complicating matters is Banksy’s own ambivalent attitude toward authenticating his (or her or their) own work. Pest Control, the allegedly official group that authenticates Banksy’s work, has this to say:

‘[Banksy] would encourage anyone wanting to purchase one of his images to do so with extreme caution, but does point out that many copies are superior in quality to the originals.

”…Banksy has a casual attitude to copyright and encourages the reproduction of his work for your own personal amusement, so it’s with regret that he finds himself having to deem pieces either “real” or “fake”.’ (source)

Which is all just to say, we need vending machines like iBanksy in the world, to raise such questions in such a fun and interactive way!

Uncategorized

Stub: Altered Aesthetics

Art-o-Mat really started something with their repurposed cigarette vending machines! Altered Aesthetics has gotten in on the act, too!

Altered Aesthetics is a non-profit community-based art gallery and arts advocacy organization located in the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District. We believe artists represent a voice of society and our mission is to support and expand a vibrant arts community.

Over the past six years, we have stayed true to our mission by hosting over 50 compelling group exhibitions, showing the work of over 1,000 local and international artists. In 2009, we drew over 2,000 people into the arts district to attend 14 engaging exhibits. We were also an active part of Art-A-Whirl, which helped to draw over 20,000 people into the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District. (source)

An art vending machine seems like a great way for such an organization to extend it’s outreach. It’s both an art gallery and arts advocate that works 24/7. It works in a format that is inviting, approachable and interactive and can reach people who might never give art a second thought.

Skull Head Series 1 by Jason Kiley, an artwork sold from the Ae Art Vending Machine

This article from The Daily Planet (I know, right?) describes the project in much greater depth than Altered Aesthetics does, and concludes:

…It happened on my turn too, but I patiently re-fed quarters into the beast, yanked on the pearl handle and received my numbered piece by St. Paul’s Jeffery F. Morrison. After showing it off to all my friends, I went home and put it in a place of honor. It’s honestly the only original art I own.

That, to me, is what it’s all about. Getting people to interact with art in ways they never have before. Jennifer Thomsen, the article’s author, now has a piece of original artwork in her home that she’ll see every day. Maybe it will inspire her to buy more art, or maybe to create some of her own!

vending machine art history

Stub: Pingo [Art Vending Machine]

Post author By matt
Post date July 16, 2010
No Comments on Stub: Pingo [Art Vending Machine]

The folks at Pingo have (or had… the site doesn’t seem to have been updated much since 2009 so I don’t know how active they still are) a really cool machine. It’s one of those spirally kind where the capsules are actually spheres that roll and roll down a long tube, building anticipation for the treat you’re about to recieve:

Pingo is curated by Esther Yarnold for piCOt. piCOt is “a loosely joined collective of artists, writers, curators and researchers whose work inhabits the intersections of art, technology and critical theory,” with contributors based in London & South West UK and across Europe. Among their activities is the geekFest, “a two-day festival of digital, live art and time-based practices by cultural experimenters. geekFest presents work which is hybrid, interactive, relational and negotiates a space with the audience through technology.” piCOt sounds totally awesome! I hope they’re still around!

Uncategorized

Stub: Bubble World Corporation

Post author By matt
Post date July 15, 2010
No Comments on Stub: Bubble World Corporation

All we know about the Bubble World Corporation is this: Bubble World Corporation was founded by Jason McLean & Marc Bell. It existed as an art-dispensing vending machine in Vancouver B.C. from 1999-2003. That little bit of information came from Hand Model, a Canadian hand model who models exclusively with art. It’s a wonderfully cryptic website, with no explanation of who the model is, or why she’s doing what she’s doing. She does a great job, though, truly instilling a sense of desire for the objects she’s holding. In one section, she’s holding capsules:

I’d love to know more about Bubble World Corporation, but all Google search results lead back to Hand Model.

Uncategorized

Stub: Itty Bitty Art Committee

Post author By matt
Post date July 14, 2010
No Comments on Stub: Itty Bitty Art Committee

The Itty Bitty Art Committee is in Leeds, England, was started by Sophie Ashcroft and Beverly Cottrell:

“Itty Bitty Art Committee is a collaborative project which aims to create itty bitty art galleries in unusual spaces.”

One of their galleries is a toy capsule vending machine! It’s fun to watch their progress with the machine. It arrives here.

“Here is the wonderful vending machine that has arrived today along with a large sack of balls to be filled with our tiny art creations!”

From there you can follow along as they create new things to put in the machine and take it to shows and so on.

The Itty Bitty Art Committee's Art Vending Machine, on location.

Sophie and Beverly seem like cool people who are having a lot of fun with the “small art” idea. Great work, you two! I’m looking forward to see where this takes you!

Uncategorized

Stub: Cap Art Vending

Check out Anne Stone‘s gorgeous art vending machine!

Pomo the Chapbot - Art Vending in Vancouver

Unfortunately, this is the sort of machine that devours a bit of your soul every time you use it. Fortunately, it only costs a nickel so I guess it all evens out.

From Anne’s website:

The Cap Art Vending Machine is an alternative distribution network. Inspired by Distroboto in Montreal and Outsider-art-in-a-box more locally, Capilano now has its own art- and chapbook-vending machine. Inside a given capsule, you may find a tiny chapbook, a poem, or an art project produced by a Capilano student or alumni, faculty member, visiting writer, or artist. For one nickel, these tiny art- and word-bearing capsules are dispensed from a refurbished clown’s head vending machine housed in Capilano University’s Writing Centre.

Uncategorized

Stub: Asha Ganpat

The Erasing Borders: Passport to Contemporary Indian Art show ran from Feb-June 2008 at the Indo-American Arts Council in NYC and featured “Art Vending Machine” by Asha Ganpat:

This is all we know about it:

Title: “Art Vending Machine”
Using the typical vending machine seen
at the exit to the grocery store,
It invites spectators to own a miniature
version of a work of her art for a mere dollar.
Every artist should have one of these.
Price: $1.00 each / $300

vending machine art history

Stub: Joseph D’Uva

As you know, I’m compiling a history of art vending machines. Unfortunately, the record of such machines is often very spotty, sometimes consisting of no more than a rumor or picture. I’m going to start adding these as stubs, in case someone out there knows something more!

The first is this, a photo from the Flickr account of user upso, of Toledo, Ohio:

All we know is in 2006, Joseph D’Uva sold 168 different original lithographs from a toy capsule vending machine. I love his tongue in cheek humor, since of course it would be impossible to collect all 168. Why did he do it? How long did it run for?

This appears to be Joseph D’Uva’s website, but there’s no mention of the project.

If you can tell us more, please get in touch!