as a young artist i was often looking for ways to get my stuff out into the public, and one of the most common things i came across was art/design competitions. put on by some organization, band or company, there are specific guidelines to follow and a deadline. and once you submit that art it’s no longer yours, even if you don't win. these competitions are framed in such a backwards way that prey on the naivety of young creatives. the pay off if you win is maybe a small sum of money and or exposure, none of which is really equivalent to the amount of work you put into it. and if you don't win? well you get squat, occasionally there is a 2nd/3rd place runners up prize which again is not going to be equivalent to the work you put into it. these contests benefit only the people running them and do active harm to the artistic community. there is already such a struggle these days with getting people to value creative work and when competitions like this are held it only upholds this idea that creatives shouldn’t be paid for their labour. win or lose, all contestants in these competitions are being exploited because there is no guarantee of compensation and the compensation probably isn’t worth it. a lot of these are hosted by groups with a small creative budget, and they know that they can't afford to hire a professional who knows their worth, so they prey on the inexperienced, young, emerging creatives. not only are they getting free labour, but they are also getting free exposure for their event- those contests that rely on you getting votes to win? that's an ad. if you want to host an ethical and non exploitative competition to get a range of choices- don't, but if you do every single contestant should be properly compensated.

The concept for this machine is based on the ethics of design competitions. I want to have the space set up with a prompt for people to follow and then submit their work into a box to see if they won the competition. Under the submission slot is a paper shredder that acts as a way to show just how little these contests care for the work people put into it. After you submit your design, you open the front gate to reveal a printed "you lose" sign. Beyond it just being funny, the fact that it is clearly the same answer everyone gets shows that even if you "win" a design contest, you didn't really.