Maurice Benayoun‘s Emotion Vending Machine (part of the Smile Machines exhibition at Transmediale) reminds me of our less sophisticated Venting Machine.

The mechanics of the world’s emotions evolve in the zone where economics and politics converge, in the world of product placement. The Emotion Vending Machine takes internet data as a global pool of emotions. You can make your musical “cocktail” by selecting up to 3 emotions from a list (optimistic, overjoyed, alone, terrified, etc.) The emotions are represented by 3D-maps of word clusters, extracted in real time from the web.

The maps show the emotions of the world as they are present on the web at that moment, mapped onto the actual position of major cities on the globe, a mix which can also be read like a music score. The musical interpretation deciphers the cities and their emotional polarity to produce a particular musical tone by adapting rhythm, coloration and evolution to your choice of emotional states. The musical result can also be uploaded on your USB stick or MP3 player.

Amusing, but there are more stimulating projects on the artist’s website.
Images.