COOKIES – a cookie vending machine

Cookies is a speculative design project set in the year 2050, where money has lost its value and data has become the main currency. Personal identity has been diffused, so that the only difference between us lies in the data stored within vast databases.

The project seeks to raise awareness of the most automatic click: Accept Cookies.

This act hides an invisible transaction: the exchange of personal information as the key access to websites. We rarely perceive it as a real trade, as if it was not about us, but… what are we really accepting?

“Cookies” is a vending machine that materialises the “accept everything” button. The artifact requires users to place their hand on a pressure sensor, in return they receive a cookie as a “free” reward. This act metaphorically represents the extraction of our personal data just for getting a simple cookie. In this way, “cookies” makes visible the hunger of our society for the illusion of getting something for free.