How many luxury cars in your town? (2004)

Luxury cars are a symbol of success and achievement, a measure of power and glory, the object by which one’s place in the world is defined and qualified. Impeccable mechanic, refinement of the interior, leather seats, the full array of safety equipment; whether it is called Brake Assist, Electronic Stability Program (ESP), or Automatic Slip Control. (ASR) The GPS receiver on GM’s ONSTAR system is another example of a feature that discerning consumers might expect to find in a ‘top of the line’ vehicle.

How many luxury cars in your town? analyses the traffic on highways and in one projection, merges fragments of vehicles, with lines from the Book One* of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature And Causes of the Wealth of Nations. This project looks at the symbolic of cars as an anthropomorphic fantasy of individualism.

The How many luxury cars in your town? is also a video series project in which a ‘looker’ literally names the luxurious cars that passes on a street.

*Book one – Of the causes of improvement in the productive powers of labour, and of the order according to which its produce is naturally distributed among the different ranks of the people.

Note: For a complete online version of An Inquiry into the Causes of the Wealth of Nation see the website of The Adam Smith Institute

http://www.adamsmith.org/smith/won-intro.htm