I was very pleased to receive these pictures from Frances Reed, who is my god-daughter, and who has just completed her degree at The Ruskin School of Fine Art at Oxford.
As part of the college's graduation show Frances created these slot machines, which in more than one sense can be said to be the antithesis of the art for art sake aesthetic!
Frances writes:
I made three coin operated machines, which
were designed so that the examiners would have to pay to mark my work whilst
kneeling in undignified/compromising positions. Each machine showed a different
film which was triggered using a different mechanism. For instance to work the
'mouth' machine, the viewer would insert 20 pence and turn the handle in either
direction, triggering a film of a cows tongue to play inside the mouth, the
faster the handle was turned the faster the footage would play. For the 'eye
machine' the viewer placed they're hands on the palmistry design which
triggered off heat sensors to play a film showing earth worms edited to dance
to a sound track by Divine. The machine cases are made from plywood which I
then glossed, I hollowed out all of the light bulb fittings in the machines and
replaced them with LED's. The machines didn't go down too well with the
examiners, perhaps unsurprisingly, but I had a lot of fun making them and
learnt a great deal as well.
I am sure that Frances will go far! How marvellous to be able to discomfort one's examiners in this way!
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