LUCKY
Raewyn Turner
Artist, Auckland New Zealand
rae.turner@xtra.co.nz
Abstract
Lucky personal
products are potential tools of practical animism. The project asks if mind can
influence matter.
Gambling is about beating logic, beating reason. Fragrance,
finger wipes and tongue drops have been developed to fortify the lower senses
of the gambler playing with chance on pokie machines, which are essentially
random number generators.
The assumption between experience in gambling and
experience of the world is that methods of advancement often incorporate a fair
measure of luck. Winning embodies awareness of a freakish tide of random
disorder, illogic, and futility.
Lucky
‘Lucky’ encompasses playing with chance,
biotechnology, the concept of affective intention, and our own wagers with
ourselves.
The project involves the creation of
power objects intended for use as tools of ‘magic’ for gamblers.
The work required growing,
harvesting, and testing of four-leaf clovers on pokie machines (1) in
casinos and the subsequent development of the personal products and their
packaging. The products for the lower senses (taste, touch and smell) are
intended to fortify the gambler’s defenses against the mesmerizing visual and
aural lures of the sense–smuggling machines.
The Lucky documentary
(work currently in progress) includes interviews with family members, the
Problem Gambling Foundation, Hotel Proprietors in the remote East Cape,
four-leaf clover collectors, a perfumer, Crown Research laboratories, product
design at Massey university, a scientific glassblower and two 3D modelers.
The transient nature
of our existence is bearable when we have stable ground to stand on. Although
we look for personal fulfillment in accruing ‘things’ we find ourselves living
with the paradox that all those ‘things’ that cost, seem to be open to choice,
but the ultimately important matters such as contamination of the planet,
global warming, the ‘war against terror’ seem to be beyond our control.
The idea that we can influence vast forces such as
weather and chance by our willing, rituals or lucky charms, arises from a fear
of the uncontrollable and the unknown. People go to the casino hoping for
something miraculous to happen — the difference is, sums of money are involved
in trying to engineer a financial avalanche.
The escalation of
playing with chance and randomness on the pokies seems to echo the reality of
living life in an increasingly unpredictable global soup. If considered in a much
larger context the gamblers’ practice of muted risk-taking indicates a wider
culture of risky ventures such as extreme sports and entrepreneurism while
simultaneously there is a growing anxiety about our lives becoming out of
control. Risk taking emphasises the urgent desire to manifest control over
feelings of fear and anguish and to reset the happiness balance by stimulating
the brain’s reward system to produce endorphins.
Personal Care Products
The shape of the container references ‘fulgurites’ formed
from cloud to ground lightning discharges. In the
case of natural lightning, it is usually unknown when and where the discharge
is going to occur.
The containers are small enough to fit in the hand and
30mm in width as a reference to lightning almost always being 30mm wide. In the
centre of the container is a small glass vial of 7mm diameter and 56mm long, topped with a ground glass
stopper.
Each container is a similar but unique item. Random
mutations were applied to the initial fulgurite computer model, which was built
by Nelson Rayner in 3-dimensional modeling & animation software 3D Studio
Max.
Brett Orams devised a technique to employ a random number seed generator
in 3D studioMax to change the parameters of each container. The numbers to seed these mesh distortions using a noise
modifier were generated online at www.random.org
which used atmospheric noise amplified via a radio receiver to deliver a five
digit result - which was duly fed into the aforementioned modifier.
The 50 unique variations produced were then subject to
an 'unnatural selection' process to cull the versions that were unfit to
produce a stereolithogaphic product capable of fully encasing the glass vials
without the vial cavity 'daylighting' through to the outside of the object. The
series of events resembled an organic process where unique individuals evolved
through mutation & only those selected by
prevailing conditions survived to complete the process
of reproduction - in this instance to a small number of physical synthetic
objects.
The product containers were created on a rapid prototype machine by Dr
Olaf Diegel, Institute of Technology and Engineering, Massey University.
The fragrance was created with Louise Crouch, a
commercial perfumer who has a consistent colour association with numbers and
letters of the alphabet that assists her memory of
around 200–300 perfumery materials she uses to create odour combinations to
formulate perfumes for the commercial market.
The formula for the fragrance was ‘perfection - money
= play’ and it contains essential oils
of rosemary, lemon, bergamot, clove, cinnamon, vanilla, sandalwood, peppermint,
patchouli, vetiver, geranium, and clary sage
The fragrance is intended to moderate the intense
sensation of wanting to lose with the possibility of sudden euphoric avalanches
of money and love. Smell has largely been excluded as a rational logical form
of communication because it is subjective and experiential. Perhaps cultivating
an awareness of feeling and sensation would give us more awareness of our
cultural, social and temporal constructions of reality…. It may answer why, for
example, does the moon dust purportedly smell like spent gunpowder—which we use
to kill animals and other humans?
The finger wipes are scrolls of papyrus. Subsequent to
being passed as 100% safe by the NZ authorities the papyrus will be coated with
a bioluminescent genetically engineered product that will produce glowing
fingertips. The product is deemed 100% safe by its manufacturers, however it is
currently undergoing a "status of substance" report by Erma the
environmental management authorities in NZ.
Erma’s rigorous testing would ensure that there are no
risks in this product which would in effect
raise issues of gambling with our
economically valuable image of a ‘clean
green’ environment. The substance would be sourced from a
biotechnology company whose core business is based upon newly discovered genes
from deep-water marine bioluminescent organisms which have broad applications
for biomedical research, drug discovery, and entertainment.
The luminance would be activated by the player
spitting on the paper and rolling it
onto the fingertips before pressing the pokie machine button.
The tongue drops are blank pilule tablets which have
been infused with a homeopathic
medication prepared from selected 4-leaf clovers which have been ascertained
unsuccessful in gambling trials in casinos. They are flavoured and sweetened
with vanilla which is known to be the
most popular flavour in America. The very physical nature of psychosomatic
illnesses, placebo drugs, and the effects of animistic objects, signify that
little is known about the possession of command between the mind and the body.
(1) Pokie machines are also known
as gaming machines in New Zealand
