Rest Stop Vending Machine, California (2033)

Abstract

In the federal highway rest stop there are parking spots, picnic benches, a shade structure or two, and an irrigated lawn. There is also a vending machine. Vending machines are, by law, the only commercial activity allowed in rest stops; commercial activity is not allowed because it is opposed to rest. This thesis indexes rest to aesthetic sensibilities like comfort and peace, but above all to beauty. The project emancipates beauty from the relational or performance imperatives typically framed in landscape discourse; the apprehension of a beautiful landscape is instead immediate, discrete, and perceptible. The vending machine is the apparatus to distribute beauty, while the rest stop’s material components—water, toilets, walls, cars, and plants, both living and synthetic—are redirected to create vignetted experiences of the beautiful, in which dissonance is an essential trait. Press a button and encounter beauty!