solo projects
No Change
When a visitor puts a coin into the slot of this fairly utilitarian looking machine, they hear the coin drop down and travel through the mechanism. Various sounds describe journeys or displacements inside the box - from a bee buzzing around in its interior, to the sound of money being dropped into a jar, or the sound of the coin travelling and zigzagging down a chute. It soon becomes apparent that the length of journey that the sounds describes, however, is impossibly long for the coin in relation to the size of the box, setting up a dissonance for the visitor between risk and reward, action and reaction, of delayed gratification. Eventually the same coin shoots out of the return slot for the visitor to either catch or retrieve from the floor. The more quickly a coin is inserted between 'plays', the longer the sonic journey that the coin takes between entering and being ejected.
I was interested in exploring how we interact with gambling slot machines – the physical act of placing a coin in a slot and the mental act of waiting and expecting either a reward of gain or of loss. This simple dynamic between the action and the outcome is usually framed with other stylistic flourishes. What dynamics are revealed if these are removed and paired down to their most basic? What happens when the ‘payoff’ takes longer the more it is used? In simulating and stimulating an addictive experience, what does it reveal experientially about addictive behaviour?
In stripping away the usual cultural trappings surrounding this act, I want to focus on this psychological interval between the pleasure of risk and reward. It elongates the momentary nature of an addictive act to reveal the process - of gratification between the object and action, the psychology of time bound up in the act of fulfilling compulsive behaviour.
No Change
Kypros Kyprianou 2018
Commissioned by Science Gallery, London for 'Hooked'
Curated by Hannah Redler
Thanks to:
David Chatting for early coding and prototyping.
Matt Jarvis for final coding and troubleshooting.
Tom Schofield for hints and tips.
21 September 2018 – 6 January 2019
Participating artists: Olivia Locher, Lawrence Epps, Kypros Kyprianou, Atelier 010, Richard Billingham, Varvara & Mar, Yole Quintero, Katriona Beales, Jonah Brucker Cohen, Benjamin Grosser, Rachel Maclean, Esmeralda Kosmatopoulos, Joachim Koester, Dryden Goodwin, Mr Gee, Angus Scott-Miller, Blast Theory, Fabio Lattanzi-Antinori, Natasha Caruana, Mark King, Melanie Manchot, YoHa, Daniel Regan, Fallen Angels.