Gentr-o-Mat

A couple of Koln International School of Design (KISD) students were inspired by the short course in ‘Provocative Technology’ I taught there in November 2012 in designing the ‘Gentr-o-Mat’ as an output of their research into gentrification in Berlin. The project is a working vending machine that dispenses a range of products to help people ‘resist gentrification’. The products, such as annoying audio devices, marker pens concealed inside latte cups, and ‘Yves Klein blue’ paint-bombs’, draw on real practices of anti-gentrification activists in Berlin. You can download a rough pdf explaining the project.

There are a some pleasing circularities in the project’s symbolism: while equipping people to resist gentrification, it also hints at the commodification of resistance, echoing the processes by which street art and creative guerilla tactics quickly get mainstreamed and aestheticised – and are often used in the first waves of gentrification.