Metro Card Vending Machine Formalism

Metro Card Vending Machine

Formalism in art focuses on the reception of a work with an eye towards its essential, formal characteristics, such as color, shape, and line, so that a formal analysis seeks to explicated the meanining generated by the physical object itself. One piece that seemingly invites formal analysis while frustrating this invitation through its functional nature is the MetroCard Vending Machine in the Museum of Modern Art in New York (as well as the New York Subway system), designed by Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger at their studio, Antenna Design.

Through its clever use of shape and color, the MetroCard Vending Machine invites the viewer to interact with it with the promise of whimsy and ease-of-use, thus utilizing its formal properties to engage the viewer far more directly and personally than one might expect of a vending machine.

Before describing the MetroCard Vending Machine in detail with an eye towards its formal characteristics, it will be useful to briefly discuss its context and functional purpose, if only as a means of avoiding them later, because one cannot really discuss a vending machine without at least mentioning what it is selling and why. The MetroCard machine sells the reusable cards and passes used to pay for transit on the New York subway system, and were introduced in the mid-1990s in order to phase out the use of token booth clerks and streamline the movement of travellers through the station.

As such, the machines were required to be "user-friendly and accessible to all, aesthetically pleasing, and vandal-resistant."

The MetroCard Vending Machine design featured at MOMA achieved all of these goals, and succeeded not only in streamlining the subway experience but also led to a variety of awards and subsequent transit-centered commissions for Antenna Design.

The casing of the MetroCard machine in the Museum of Modern Art (which is exactly the same as any of the machines in subway stations) is a large trapezoidal box made out of steel.

The corners of the case are rounded so that there are no right angles, but rather smooth edges everywhere. On either side of the front, vertical bars are set just inside the edge of the rounded corner, giving the big steel box some extra depth and making the entire thing appear smoother. At the top of the machine's face there is a marquee, and the edge of the marquee is also rounded. The marquee sits on the same plane as the front of the machine, but underneath, in the area where people interact with the machine, the machine is recessed. At the top of this part there is a mirror, and it is also rounded like everything else. The mirror is at an angle so that it goes from the front of the machine back to where the recessed part is.

In the recessed part there is a touchscreen with a black square around it. On the screen there is a yellow bar with rounded corners and then the rest of the screen below it is black. The yellow bar says "touch start to begin" and there is a button next to it labeled "start." In the black part of the screen there is a picture of a hand pointing to the start button and words that say "touch start." If the user touches start then he or she goes through a number of screens that use this same color scheme, except sometimes a blue bar appears that says what the user just did, like "you selected single MetroCard." All of the options to choose from are done in the same kind of button as the start button.

Once the user starts buying a MetroCard two other buttons appear that are not like the others because they do not have rounded edges. On the left is a gray button labeled "GO BACK," and the right features a red button labeled "CANCEL." When the user has decided upon what fare he or she would like, the yellow bar changes to green and shows the remaining cost of the fare. Upon completion, this bar changes to orange, and instructs the user to take his or her MetroCard, with an arrow pointing towards the area on the machine where cards are dispersed. Finally, if the user wants a receipt, this bar changes to red, with an arrow pointing down towards where the receipt will be dispersed.

To the right of the black square containing the touchscreen there is a green portion featuring a coin and bill slot along with text listing all of the denominations accepted by the machine. To the lower-right of that is a small yellow area where MetroCards are dispersed (and where old MetroCard may be traded in). Below the screen a blue area features a slot for credit and debit cards alongside a keypad and icons listing all of the accepted cards. The lower portion of the blue credit area and the yellow fare card area slant forward, so that their lower edges once again meet the foremost plane of the machine. Immediately below this, centered in the middle of the machine, is a red area where change and receipts are dispersed.

More than anything else, the formal elements of the machine act as an invitation. The rounded edges on everything from the touchscreen buttons to the casing itself serve to soften any sharp lines, thus inviting the user by suggesting a level of tactile safety; though clearly a heavy, steel machine, the rounded edges serve to give the MetroCard machine an almost cartoon-like character, so that the viewer cannot help but have the impression that it is somehow friendly, despite its inanimate nature. The recessed portion of the machine, though a common feature of vending machines and ATMs, is worth mentioning because it further invites the user into a space partially segmented from the larger area of the station, thus allowing the interaction to feel personal and comfortable.