"Sale Away" in Groningen
Sale Away was commissioned by the European Media Art Festival for the EMAF festival in Osnabrueck, 2004. The piece was installed in a popular shopping street in Osnabrueck and was designed to actively engage passers-by otherwise absorbed in looking at things for sale, at themselves and at others. Sale Away invited people to play and play with a complex mechanical sound orchestra installed in a shop front using their mobile phones.
The mechanical orchestra consisted of vacuum cleaners playing flute, organ and brass, rattling kitchen mixers, buzzing ventilators, radio playing toy trains, wobbling jigsaws, dancing tumble dryers, humming refrigerators and other appropriated household utilities which might normally be found in a store window. A man-sized refrigerator served as the conductor and explanatory interface for the sound orchestra. In order to start the orchestra and wake up the shop window, passers-by dialed into a system whose number and basic commands were posted on the window. This call opened the door of the fridge, revealing a “mobile-phone robot person" created by Erik Kriek. The robot offered guidelines for interaction and invites the passer-by to “play” the orchestra through their phone. This installation was later shown at the Tschumipavijloen in Groningen 2004 and at the CultuurNacht /oude Stroom gebouw Den haag 23 till 24 Septermber 2005.