You may want a functioning universal healthcare or to have a grandchild. But most of the time, you just want sardines, or new shoes, or to get lunch in a new place across the street. That the cheap things (even if they were relatively expensive) are designed to distract is obvious, but how much can you want? 
 

I investigated it as a physical question. And, it is exhausting to want very badly. For example, Maria Hupfield and I aimed to want out loud for 1 min on three different occasions. We never lasted more than 40sec. By the third time, we only had 23sec of things we wanted in us. It gets harder the more you do it. Somehow it’s harder and harder to remember things you want.






 

Audio based on aural documentation. Maria Hupfield with Tusia Dabrowska (MAD, Gibney, BRIC 2017-18).
Video and Gif incorporate Maria Hupfield’s object activation that we filmed during her residency at MAD. 
Maria and I met at the BRICworkspace residency.