The Poetry Kiosk
What if scanning a barcode unlocked poetry instead of prices? The Poetry Kiosk transforms the familiar ritual of self-checkout into a poetic, playful encounter. Users scan an everyday product they brought, and rather than printing a price, the kiosk extracts the product's defining word and prints a human-written poem that mentions it as a receipt.
#Interactive Installation
Year: 2025
Exhibited at: Woman Made Gallery /Open Hardware Summit
Using the scanned barcode, the custom-made system retrieves the product's information from the web, and extracts one or two defining words from the product's name-such as coconut water, chocolate, or beer. It then looks for a poem in the Poetry Foudation database that contains that word. If there're multiple poems, it randomly selects one and prints it on a receipt.
By repurposing a familiar retail technology, the work invites users to imagine alternative uses for everyday technologies beyond their intended functions.
