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home|artworks index|public|performances||installations|photography|The Wish Machine Project, 1997 – Present. Various Locations.
< previous Originally commissioned by Creative Time, 1997-98
The Wish Machine
The Wish Machine was originally commissioned as an interactive public artwork for Grand Central Station in 1997-98 by Creative Time. Wrapped in the image of a wishing tree from India, The Wish Machine, a refabricated vending machine, dispenses wishes to the public.
Each wish/artwork includes a printed photocollage depicting a plant that evoked the essence of the wish along with a small vial of the plant’s essential oil to extend the wishing ritual into a multisensory experience. The wishes are, basil=money, clove=lust, hyacinth = peace, lilac=hope, lily=sleep, love=rose mint=communication, rosemary=environment, lavender=happiness, and eucalyptus=health. The essential oils are the vehicle for the participant to meditate on their wish. Since the act of wishing often pinpoints one’s desire for change; The Wish Machine has transformed busy public areas into spaces of reflection. To date over 20,000 people have participated in The Wish Machine project. The Wish Machine is trademarked.
1000+ Wishes and wishmachine.com
1000+ Wishes is a book of anonymous wishes that have been collected from around the world via wishmachine.com, fax, mail, written and spoken. All together these wishes link our common desires, pain, joy, and hopes in a poetic rant that accents humanity’s similarities more than differences. Included are wishes by Tibetan refugee children in India. The children’s wishes provide the book with a call for peace and compassion that is universal. The wishes marked the passage of time into the next millennium as a global action within a public art project. This artist book is one of the first to be produced through responses on a web site. Over 50% of the wishes in the book came through the internet and the remainder were collected via mail, fax or spoken.
History
The Wish Machine, has traveled to the Frankfurt Train Station, Frankfurt, Germany; Grand Central Station, Creative Time, New York; Natural Reality, The Ludwig Forum Museum, Aachen, Germany; The Anchorage, New York; India International Centre, New Delhi, India; The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada; AIDS Worlds, The Centre D’art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland; AIDS Worlds, Centre D’art Contemporain Bellizonna, Switzerland; Vital Signs, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada; and What’s The Use, Jean Paul Slusser Gallery, University of Michigan.
Links
Wish Machine (German site)
Trans Wishes
Frankfurt Train Station