Art vending machines tend to operate for a short time in limited areas. So much so that most people encountering an art vending machine for the first time believe that it is the first of its kind and that its creator had come up with a completely original idea. In fact, many of the people who run art vending machines often believe they’re the first ones to think of it. I must confess, Callithump! shared the same conceit. We were blissfully vending up in Orono, Maine, telling a more worldly friend about what we were doing when they said, “Hey, just like Art*o*Mat ® !” Art*o*Mat® even had a machine in Maine at Space Gallery.
Had we known about Art*o*Mat® beforehand, we might have abandoned the idea of creating an art vending machine. However, by then we’d already committed a significant amount of time and other resources to the project and it was too late to turn back. When it comes right down to it, billions of people have been creating stuff for many millennia. No matter how original your idea seems, there’s a very good chance someone else has done it before. The question is, how can you take the idea and make it better, or at least do it different, so the idea grows and develops. The Callithump! difference is that we’re cheaper, more repetitive and more disposable than other art vending projects. That’s not meant to sound self-effacing. We’re trying to promote a playful, social interaction with creativity. When you spend 50 cents and get something you already have, you can trade with someone else, give it away as a gift, or just leave it somewhere for someone to find by accident and bring random joy into the life of a stranger.
So, we’re working to build this history of vending machine art, to honor those who’ve come before and to inspire those who come next.
Unfortunately, the history of art vending machines isn’t very well documented. If you’re currently involved in an art vending project, or have ever been involved, or know anyone who has, please contact me and I’ll add your information. Also, if you’ve been involved with any of the projects on this page please share any additional information with us. We’d really love to expand on this and make it as comprehensive a history as possible.
Please note: Callithump! is not affiliated with, or endorsed by any of these entities. Any links to, or graphics from, their various websites are probably without the knowledge or consent of the creators. We hope that you understand we’re doing this site to celebrate and promote the work that you do and are with it. If not, please contact us and we’ll rectify the situation immediately. Also, any information presented here is gathered from the Internet or is our personal opinion, and is probably incomplete and innacurate. Please help us fix this by letting us know!
Prehistory & Fluxus
The earliest coin-op vending machine (that we know of) was invented by Hero of Alexander. He used it to dispense holy water. Surprisingly, the idea didn’t catch on for another 1,700 years. The first vending machines in regular usage came about in the 1880s in England. These dispensed postcards with scenic views of London. About the same time British publisher Richard Carlisle created a vending machine to sell books. So really, the first modern vending machines were art vendors! However, these first vedors were more likely business people trying out a new way of selling products rather than artists looking for a new venue for their creative output. That would take another 80 years.
Like most worthwhile art of the latter half of the 20th century, vending machine art started with/was popularized by the Fluxus movement. They were the first to recognize the creative potential within vending machines.
In 1963 Robert Watts used a stamp vending machine to vend "Fluxpost" stamps. I’ve only been able to find a picture of his machine, however, not what was inside it.
The Daily Palette
The idea of the vending machine as an alternative art gallery began in the 1970s with Robert Piser's The Daily Palette. The Daily Palette was a series of newspaper vending machines in the San Francisco Bay Area. These were filled with weekly silk-screened art editions that sold for 25 cents, or, as Piser put it, "Significant art works at popular prices." Piser's work was significantly different from the Fluxus artists. The Fluxus artists vended work by single artists inside a gallery. For Piser, the vending machine was the gallery, selling work by a variety of artists in locations not typically associated with art, such as on street corners. The desire to break away from traditional ideas of art galleries and to make art available to "non-traditional art buyers" aka, regular folk, are ideals that most contemporary art vending machine endeavors share.
Hayvend Laboratories
Operating out of London, Hayvend Laboratories has been selling "affordable, desirable and collectible" artworks since 1995.
Art*o*Mat®
Started in 1997, the Art*o*Mat ® is probably the most
polished, professional, coolest and most successful art
vending machine in the US. Better still, they give
artists a generous 50% cut of the sale. Art*o*Mat ®
repurposes cigarette vending machines, and the machines
are works of art unto themselves. They completely
redecorate and refurbish the old machines, making them
fresh and new while still honoring the historical
context of the period the machine was created in.
Check out their gallery! Currently they
have 82 machines around the US other countries!
Art*o*Mat ® just started selling stuff online.
Distroboto
Distroboto, started in 2001, also uses . Remarkably,
Distroboto vends for $2 and gives the artist a $1.75 cut!
Unfortunately, (for those of us living outside of Montreal)
Distroboto is run by Archive Montreal:
Archive Montreal appears to be totally focused on Montreal. You can only get Distroboto from vending machines in Montreal. This is a shame because their work looks so tantalizing:Archive Montreal is a non-profit organization founded in 1998 by local writers, artists and publishers. Its mandate is assisting in the promotion, distribution and preservation of local independent culture.
Gumball Poetry
Gumball Poetry was published by Laura Moulton and Ben Parzybok from 1998 to 2006 in Portland, Oregon. Like Callithump!, they used 2" capsule toy vending machines to sell poetry and other contents. Smartly, their main focus was poetry, printed in black & white on plain paper. This would lower costs and reduce production time over the elaborate way we do it! They even included an actual gumball in the capsule, so even if you didn't like the poem, you still got your money's worth. Gumball Poetry had a good run of it, with 19 machines throughout 8 states in the Pacific Northwest. Happily for them, but unfortunate for the rest of us, Laura and Ben have moved on to other creative endeavors (like having children and writing books).
Snack Art
Back before the University of Maine, Orono, sold out it’s students by granting a vending concessions monopoly to Coca Cola, the vending machines were filled by independent contractors. Since Orono isn’t too far from the Canadian border, the contractors would have routes that went up into Canada. Sometimes, when they ran out of US products, the contractors would fill up slots with Canadian product. It was a kind of magic when you’d come across this. You’d find things you’d never heard of before, things that you couldn’t find anywhere but that one vending machine at that one moment. When that thing was gone, you’d never see it again. Somehow, those rare items always tasted better than the standard fare. The chocolates were made from real chocolate instead of the brown-dyed paraffin that passes for chocolate in the US, for example. Or you’d get mirror mirror versions of the old standards like lime & black pepper chips instead of salt & vinegar. It was always a rare and special treat to find these things in the vending machines, and I’d always pump in my quarters when it happened because I knew I wouldn’t have another chance. When I came back, it’d be gone.
In Australia, there’s a vending machine that must be filled by contractor who’s route travels not just to nearby countries, but into parallel Earths. In these worlds the vending machines don’t sell just junk food. They sell artwork!
With Snack Art, Sydney, Australia’s Jane Naylor vends artwork alongside the usual tasty snack machine treats.
Jane has great ideas when it comes to vending art. For
starters, she’s using a snack machine to vend, which allows
her to set the prices of the artworks individually (unlike
capsule, stamp and other vending machines, where you’re
stuck at whatever price the machine vends at). She
convinced local vending business man Paul Long to provide
the vending machine. Since she’s eliminated this overhead,
she’s able to give 100% of the proceeds back to the
artists. I love the fact that she still vends snacks from
the machine, too. You can feed body & soul from one
machine!
And she’s got a great logo:
If I’m ever in Australia, I’m heading over there! If you’re there now, you can find Snack Art in the Casula Powerhouse.