Absurdism Machine

Vending Machine Prototype

A prototype vending machine that dispenses free “absurdisms”, slips of paper featuring everything from fun facts to recipes to insults, to snap people out of their daily autopilot and encourage playful interaction with friends and strangers.

Role: Experience Design, Graphic Design, Physical Prototyping

Vending Machine Prototype

We placed the vending machine in a high-traffic corridor. Once passersbys are drawn in by the double take that this isn’t any regular vending machine, they press the machine’s button and recieve a piece of paper featuring an absurdism.

Absurdisms

The absurdisms feature anything from a vintage recipe questionably featuring gelatin to an illustration to a QR code linking to a random Wikipedia article.

Once people use the machine, the absurdism is theirs to keep, take photos of, and show their friends, paying forward the absurd and hopefully drawing more people towards the machine.

Process

The absurdism machine was inspired by Darko Suvin’s concept of “cognitive estrangement”—that presenting familiar things in an unfamiliar way forces us to reconsider our assumptions —and the fact that the absurd is funny. So, we looked for an everyday interaction we could subvert to introduce humor, such as using a printer, a photobooth, or a coffee machine.

We settled on a vending machine since they’re easy to use and have a very consistent result, meaning it would be all the funnier to get an absurdism instead of a soda can. We drew inspiration from Japanese vending machine graphics to create something attention-grabbing.

Testing out an early graphic with a full-scale printout. We made the graphic identity immersive at low and high levels of interaction. So, while users can get the full experience in just a few seconds, users with a bit more time can dive into the world of the machine through its unorthodox labeling.

To create a functional prototype, we fitted the machine with a receipt printer and loaded it with a roll of absurdisms which we’d pre-printed. Using an Arduino, my partner Elise programmed the printer to dispense a set length of paper each time the button is pressed.

samceerauch@gmail.com Resume LinkedIn