Next Customer Bar

This project implements an LED matrix display into a next customer "bar" – a small hand-held bar used in most supermarket checkout belts to distinguish queuing customers’ groceries. Next Customer Bar consists of a molded acrylic casing which houses thin LED displays on both sides of the bar. The scrolling text is based on cues prepared for television advertising. These cues are very clear and concise instructions which describe scenes and actions performed by actors for TV commercials. In between actions there is also a set of vocabulary used to identify cues for camera positions and movements (such as "slow pan", "close up" and "long shot"). The sc<x>ripts displayed do not make any reference to a specific brand but instead aim at presenting archetypal and somehow familiar scenes and actions that are commonly used when producing commercials.

The display of these cues within a retail environment acts as a provocation, encouraging the passer-by to find alternative meanings and modes of framing their current condition of "consumer".