Please join us for the public inauguration of Vendmaster 4000, a special model candy dispenser designed as a language game between machines and people. Come and deposit your 25 cents and choose one of our very special flavors ("Korean Skittles", "German Mike and Ike" and "Indian Hot Tamales")... Now, all you need to do is to convince the machine that you can speak well to get your candy. Didn't work? Here is your money back... Play it again please!

Vendmaster 4000
...While we are in the midst of developing new intelligences in the form of companion agents, military robots, smart housekeepers or kitchen utensils, we are often not aware of the fact that a new kind of 'other', a stranger is emerging from this machine culture. This is a mute other, a stranger that does not speak, look or behave like the rest of us, but someone who gains more and more presence every day. While most machines embody their prescribed roles in the labor economy, some alter form and function and become alien subjects that remind us the lives and conditions of human others, the immigrants, in their encounter and struggle with their others- the locals, or residents of native cultures...

Orkan Telhan is a visiting scholar at the MIT Mobile Experience Lab. He recently finished his studies at the MIT Media Lab, Sociable Media Group. Prior to that, Orkan studied Media Arts at The State University of New York at Buffalo.

web.media.mit.edu/~orkan

In a 1984, punk filmmaker Nick Zedd captured the feelings of many underground filmmakers in a manifesto published pseudonymously in the Underground Film Bulletin: "There will be blood, shame, pain and ecstasy, the likes of which no one has yet imagined. None shall emerge unscathed. Since there is no afterlife, the only hell is the hell of praying, obeying laws, and debasing yourself before authority figures, the only heaven is the heaven of sin, being rebellious, having fun, fucking, learning new things and breaking as many rules as you can. This act of courage is known as transgression. We propose transformation through transgression—to convert, transfigure and transmute into a higher plane of existence in order to approach freedom in a world full of unknowing slaves."

In Llik Your Idols (2007), French filmmaker Angelique Bosio explores the Cinema of Transgression and the No Wave scene that inspired filmmakers, artists, and musicians in Downtown New York during the 80s. The documentary features a plethora of footage, as well as interviews with many artists from this movement, including several who visited Hallwalls during this time including Richard Kern, Bruce LaBruce, Lydia Lunch, Thurston Moore, Nick Zedd, among others.

Following the documentary will be a special screening of Richard KernÕs emblematic You Killed Me First (1985). This super 8 short exposes the revolting dysfunction of the middle-class nuclear family, and features performances by Lung Leg as the irate daughter, Karen Finley as the bothered mother and the late David Wojnarowicz as the lunatic father. Both Finley and Wojnarowicz performed at Hallwalls, and the tapes documenting their performances have recently been restored thanks to a video preservation initiative.