Interactive installation. A slot machine with four dancers, the prize being bites, sucks and licks
Human Machine evokes a slot machine. It is a game of chance consisting of a large push-button in the shape of a metal cylinder, a computer and a projection system.
The images for this installation come from the video loops in the Hipno scene in Aphasia, a mechatronic performance that opened in Barcelona in 1998. The material used to record the Hipno loops originally came from the Satel.lits Obscens workshops that Marcel.lÌ carried out between 1996 and 1997. A documentary film, also called Satel.lits Obscens, was made using the workshop material.
In these scenes Marcel.lÌ embraced, kissed, sucked and licked the participants without them knowing exactly what he was going to do. This violation of their affective physical space was very intimidating and as a result the participants' reactions were very real.
This installation is the result of bringing together concepts and image banks in a new medium. They can thus be seen in a new light, perhaps with a somewhat ironical slant but without, we hope, losing their original intention.
Human Machine evokes a slot machine while substituting the traditional fruit and coins for dancers. The prize is virtual kissing with one of the dancers. Just as with slot machines, the prize depends on the machine's mathematical whim. And, just as happens in love, the prize is not always the result of being clever, nor does it depend on one's willpower, but quite simply on random chance.