What if 1: To buy, 2017
What if 1: To buy, 2017, Video Installation(Shopping carts, Steel, a bearing), 500*3500*947
In the course of our daily lives, we all make assumptions in many different situations. Shopping is the most representative example of assumptions we make in everyday life. Our shopping decisions tend to be repetitive, developing habits and assumptions of quality, as the ego of the human mind wants to view the choices it makes as the ‘right’ ones and create a constantly deepening brand and product loyalty. This project aims to shine a light on how people make assumptions and how they affect our daily consumption decisions. This interactive installation is designed explicitly with video footage to demonstrate the process of the shopping mindset and the eventual ‘reward’ that any given consumer will receive from the act of shopping itself.
Four shopping carts are connected to a center frame so that they can rotate. It lets people push a cart in various directions, but they cannot get out of the framed area, and eventually, the rotation becomes the same. In this installation, the framed structure represents a metaphorical meaning of the cycle of the assumption that people follow to decide whether or not to buy a product.
To extend the metaphor, it also shows a video containing people who buy incorporeal things, and a wordless receipt is presented to signify that they do not actually consume anything. Thus, it emphasizes that people can see that the process of assumption, and eventual consumption by extension, is a product of their imaginations.
