collaboration with Julia S. Goodman
mixed media, 2024
exhibition view SINK, Vienna
photos by Lukas Matuschek

When I was little, my aunt who is an engineer would sometimes take me to work with
her. She used to work for this big company with fancy laminated chip cards that you
had to carry with you to open all the doors. There was a room, a space in the
building called the “white room”. An extremely sterile room, with heavily filtered air
and highly controlled conditions, where the microchips that are used in most of the
electrical devices that we use are tested and manufactured. The people who worked
there would shower before entering, wear special sanitary uniforms and would retire
at a young age as this sterile atmosphere would weaken their immune systems.
Imagine how exciting the idea of this mysterious white room was for a 7 year old kid.
Visiting my aunt at work felt like going to a space station. But one day something
even more fascinating than the white room happened in this building. They got a hot
drinks vending machine.

Vending machines were a very new phenomenon in Bulgaria in the early 90s. I still
remember when my aunt called my parents to tell them that they had a vending
machine at work and if she could pick me up to show it to me. I spent that day with
her at work, most of the time hanging around this magical box, looking at the pictures
of hot drinks and admiring its genius. Only a button and a coin separated me from a
hot cocoa in a small brown plastic cup. Only a button and a coin separated me from
my reward. Is it that satisfying feeling of being rewarded what makes these machines
so tempting even today? The fact that an item falling out of that robotic cabinet
somehow feels like a prize, even though we paid for it? Vending machines manage
to trick us, the consumers, into feeling like winners, rewarded for and through our
purchase. Similar feelings still come over me every time I use a drinks dispenser in a
fast-food restaurant or canteen. The fact that I can keep refilling my cup over and
over again makes me feel like I’ve tricked the system, like I am winning, even though
I’ve already paid three times the price for it. Independence. Freedom. Unlimited
abundance. These are the feelings bubbling up from the soda fountain every time I
refill my cup with the orange Fanta replica drink. 

Independence. Freedom. Unlimited abundance – I guess this is where vending
machines and slot machines meet. They are actually related. The famous fruit
symbols on the reels of a slot machine come from the fact that some of them actually
dispensed fruit-flavoured chewing gum instead of coins – the result of a gambling ban
in the USA in the early 20th century. Later, these fruit symbols remained as a
trademark, a reminder of the machine’s vending past. Even the look of the two is
similar, a mostly monochrome shell displaying exciting, shiny, colourful objects and
images. All that stands between you and your reward is a button and a coin. And, for
the slot machines, a bit of luck. This is where luck comes in handy. Is this the reason
why Las Vegas has made sure to equip most of its large casinos with grandiose
fountains? Huge luck dispensers pumping fortune and water in different directions.
Only a coin and a toss separates you from your reward. The Trevi Fountain in Rome
is known for a custom where people toss coins for good luck. According to legend,
throwing a coin into the Trevi Fountain ensures that travellers will return to Rome
one day…Wikipedia says. My question is, what happens if you toss your coin into
the Trevi Fountain at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas? Do you return to Las Vegas or
to Rome?

text by Monika Georgieva