Project Overview
New York’s streets are filled with machines—objects built for function yet inscribed with layers of history. ATMs, newspaper dispensers, emergency call stations, and other public utilities exist in a state of flux, forming a living timeline where the past and present continuously intersect. Some of these machines seem frozen in time, their surfaces peeling with decades-old stickers and remnants of political posters, layered with traces of messages from different eras. Others have been replaced or upgraded, their sleek, polished exteriors standing in contrast to the aging infrastructure that surrounds them. These objects reveal a city in constant transformation, where technological advancements do not uniformly erase the past but instead create a patchwork of progress, decay, and adaptation.
Public machines are more than just tools of convenience; they are embedded in the city’s evolving rhythm, shaping how people navigate and interact with their surroundings. Some have been rendered nearly invisible by familiarity, blending into the background even as they continue to serve a purpose. Others demand attention, not necessarily because of their function but because of the way they exist in contradiction—outdated but still present, simultaneously neglected and essential. They are touched by thousands of hands, covered in layers of personal and collective history, yet often overlooked as mundane artifacts of everyday life. Each machine carries remnants of different eras, where the past is never fully erased but lingers as a subtle presence, coexisting with the new.
See this quick tutorial on how part of the system was built.