Smile Machines, the main exhibition at Transmediale presents a mix of –nearly– vintage and very recent works which reflect on the relationship between art, humour and technology.

One of my favourite (although since i left my boring work i don’t feel the need to buy one anymore) is the Flux Smile Machine that George Maciunas (one of the original Fluxus artists) ideated in 1972. This kind of gag forces you to smile or rather to makes an awful grimace, “making it an atavistic and threatening gesture directed against bourgeois society.”

(image.)