work > Beautification Machines

a collaboration with Jon Bernson

Beautification Machine is a device used to neutralize the bile and fear spewed forth daily over the networks and transform polarizing media sources into vehicles of contemplation and peace.The Machine combines functions of sculpture, projection, audio processing and random chance, to manipulate realtime video feeds from FOX, MSNBC, or any news source, and then strip them of all rhetoric and partisanship. By creating an oasis of calm out of the very thing that makes it difficult to find peace in the modern world, the Machine creators hope the viewer will begin to break the patterns of fear instilled paralysis and find ways to enact positive change. Beautification Machine is a humorous attempt to soothe the feathers ruffled by partisan pundits masquerading as news analysts whose worst fear, it appears, is that their viewers engage in civil dialogue. The miracle of the Machine's process is the meditative environment that naturally occurs once this divisiveness is removed. In many instances, the fear created by such sources can be completely reversed, and in the absence of this fear, natural states of empathy, mutual understanding, and calm will remain.