Automating Commodity Culture embodies the fantasy of commodity culture and the mechanism of capitalism. The architecture displays this duality permanently to allow viewing, observing, and critiquing the functioning of consumerism.
Located across from the American Museum of Natural History, the architecture serves as an extension of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, a festival containing iconic representations of capitalist corporations. The program includes a glass pavilion that retrieves the inflatables; a display basement for deflating, storing, and inflating the balloons during parade off-seasons; and a crystal palace as a home for commodity culture creatures. This project explores how commodity spectacle can be mechanized. Components such as automation, exhibition, transparency, monetization, and preservation are discussed through the new architecture.
