Are you thriving in the game of life or are you floundering? Give this ATM your debit card and you can find out. A creepily lavish art fair, Art Basel is home to an ATM that photographs you and ranks you on a public ranking according to your bank balance. Some people have $0. Some people have over $10,000. The top ranked “player” has over $2.9 million.
How it works: ATM Leaderboards has a camera that will take your photo when you use it. It appends your bank balance to your photo, along with a timestamp of when you used it. The results are displayed on the touchscreen above the ATM. CNN described it as a “working ATM” so you can probably get your money out of it. I mean at the expense of your dignity. Everyone at the art fair can see the scores and photos taken by the machine.
Here was my first thought: who is stupid enough to attach their photo to a large bank balance? It turns out that not every scrub can gain entry Art Basel Miami Beach hallowed halls. This for-profit art exhibition costs a minimum of $70 for general admission, and the pieces on display sell for millions of dollars. So users are unlikely to run the risk of being skipped. Although this panoptic machine feels so spooky I think I’d stick with the regular ATMs, thanks.
ATM leaderboards aren’t necessarily a measure of wealth, but of financial literacy. While some low-level players have had zero dollars, most people probably don’t put all of their wealth into a single checking account. Well, unless you’re the guy walking around with almost $3 million. Dude, ever heard of a savings account? A Roth IRA? An offshore account in the Cayman Islands?
G/O Media may receive a commission
According to its creators from art collective MSCHF, the ATM is intended to represent how the ultra-rich like to flaunt their wealth, according to MSCHF’s Daniel Greenberg CNN. Greenberg is willing to sell the machine, so it’s possible it will travel further or be locked away in a private collection forever. my city asked if the ATM leaderboards had generated any unexpected reactions, but received no response as of the time of publication.
ATM Leaderboards is a scoreboard where the top rankings could probably be more accurately described as a wall of enemies of the state. But if you’re feeling particularly masochistic, you can visit it at Art Basel Miami Beach through Saturday.
Update from 12/2/2022 at 5:00 p.m.: DJ Thomas “diplo” Pentz is now the top “winner” of the ATM leaderboards. He had exactly $3,004,913.06 in his account when he inserted his card into the machine.
