- An ATM at Art Basel Miami Beach is ranking users' bank balances with photos of them.
- One man in a pink t-shirt has had top place since Tuesday, with $2.9 million.
An ATM is ranking all its customers by displaying their bank balance and photo on a leaderboard at Art Basel Miami Beach.
The art installation was created by Brooklyn-based group MSCHF, and a video shared on Twitter has over 80,000 likes – exposing the participants' bank balances to an even wider audience.
—Joel Franco (@OfficialJoelF) December 1, 2022
One unidentified man in a pink t-shirt is the ATM's wealthiest user so far, as his $2.9 million has kept him top of the leaderboard since Tuesday.
A YouTube video shared by vlogger Joel Franco shows the machine in action, where its artistic license is more obvious.
When a man with a backwards cap and multicolored hair gets second place on the leaderboard with around $500,000, "HIGH SCORE #2" pops up on the ATM in the style of an arcade game.
And when one couple steps forward from a crowd nervously watching the ATM, the man hides his face with a pamphlet as an animation shows money being flushed down the toilet.
"Thanks for playing," says the machine, as the user's $48,000 isn't enough to place in the top twenty.
—Joel Franco (@OfficialJoelF) December 1, 2022
Of the 93 ATM users seen in one recording, the bottom eight had $0.00.
Other animations displayed by the ATM are futuristic adverts which make ironic statements. For example "Organs 4 Cash" labels the heart for $1 million but the brain for $150, and another jokes "Send 1 Bitcoin Get 2 Free."
Daniel Greenberg, MSCHF co-founder, told CNN that "ATM Leaderboard' is an extremely literal distillation of wealth-flaunting impulses."
The art collective chose the Miami location because "there is a dense concentration of people renting Lamborghinis and wearing Rolexes."
And because the leaderboard keeps a continuous record, MSCHF hopes that they can show the ATM at more events as well.