ROMAN MARS: This is 99% Invisible. I’m Roman Mars.
Happy 2026, beautiful nerds. We are back and ready to kick off this new year with a fresh batch of mini-stories. Usually, this is the place where I tease what’s coming up on the episode. But in my attempt to wrest control over minis and get them back to their fundamentals, once again, we are continuing with this new, hopefully improved process that I mentioned in the previous minis episode. We have three producers; they’re gathered here in a Zoom to tell me stories that I have not heard before. I am, again, unprepared. So, let’s get started. First up is producer Jeyca Medina-Gleason. Happy New Year, Jeyca.
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: Thanks, Roman. Happy New Year to you, too. So, I want to start 2026 off by talking about sports. I’m not the biggest sports fan. I’m a women’s basketball fan, and that’s pretty much it. But the Olympics are a few weeks away and I have an Olympics-ish mini for you.
ROMAN MARS: I love an Olympics-ish mini, so hit me.
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: Okay, so this is a story about a controversial swimsuit. It’s called the LZR Racer. This is a racing suit that Speedo launched back in 2008. And the thing that made the LZR Racer so controversial is that Speedó really took advantage of the fact that World Aquatics was pretty lenient on what could be considered fabric.
ROMAN MARS: Okay, what do you mean by that?
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: So, the suit was made of, like, your pretty typical swimsuit material. But in some areas, like the abs and the lower back, the laser racer added a thin layer of polyurethane. And the addition of this rubbery material helped swimmers create less drag as they moved through the water.
ROMAN MARS: Well, interesting. So I’m no physicist, but drag slows you down. And so if you want to get faster, you want less of it.
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s why swimmers wear swim caps and why they’re always freshly shaved.
ROMAN MARS: Right. So any swimmer with a LZR Racer suit kind of immediately has this advantage in the pool. So what did World Aquatics do about it? I imagine they want this stuff to be fair.
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: Right. And that’s the thing is that at first they didn’t do anything. It was the IOC–the International Olympic Committee–that had to step in and issue a ruling because the 2008 Summer Olympics were coming up. And as it stood, only swimmers with a sponsorship from Speedo were going to be able to wear this suit.
ROMAN MARS: So if you’re wearing Mizuno’s or whatever, you’re immediately at a disadvantage.
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: Yeah, because this thing had a lot of hype even before the Olympics. So the IOC ruled that the suit would only be allowed if it was made available to all competitors. So that’s what happened. The suit was made available to everybody, regardless of sponsorship. And the 2008 Olympics came, and records were made at an unbelievable rate.
ROMAN MARS: Yeah. So this was the year that Michael Phelps won, like, eight gold medals.
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: Yeah. And he did it in the Speedo LZR Racer. And he wasn’t the only one breaking records. At the 2008 Olympics, there were 25 world records broken. And of the swimmers who medaled, more than 90% of them were wearing this suit.
ROMAN MARS: I mean, I remember that being a very exciting year for swimming. But did people suspect that the suit was causing too much of an advantage? Like, was the suit banned after that?
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: It started to raise some flags for sure. But what happened next is that other companies caught on to the idea that, like, “Hey, adding polyurethane to these suits–it kind of works.” So they decided, “Okay, we’re going to take it up a notch.” And they said, “We are going to do it to the whole damn thing.” So I’ve got this picture for you of this so-called “rubberized” swimsuit. And you let me know if you’d wear that, Roman.
ROMAN MARS: I mean, I probably could because it’s, like, compression. So, like, it would suck in your belly. It looks like they’ve poured this man into this suit.
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: Yeah. I don’t know how you get into something like this. Like, really, really suck it in and pray. But anyways, a lot of companies caught on to this and they did their full-body version of the suit. And during the 2009 World Aquatic Championships, another 43 records were broken. And in 2009 alone, 147 records were broken.
ROMAN MARS: Well, that’s too many records at this point. That’s a problem.
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: Yeah. That’s when World Aquatics finally decided that enough is enough. And they ultimately banned the suit.
ROMAN MARS: But just to play devil’s advocate here–which is a term I only learned the origin of when I talked to Jayson for his mini-stories this year–these suits… You know, if they become ubiquitous, wouldn’t that just sort of even the playing field again? If everyone’s wearing them, then the sort of differential advantage is gone.
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: 100%. And there are people in the world of swimming who feel that way–that this band was too strict and it was maybe a bit of an overcorrection. But I think there was something about all those records falling so quickly that really freaked people out. It was like progress is good, but too much of it is really jarring.
ROMAN MARS: Yeah, I get that.
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: And I have another tiny story here for you, Roman, about another controversial sports item. And this one will be more relevant when the Winter Olympics start in a few weeks. So let’s talk about curling.
ROMAN MARS: I always want to talk about curling. Let’s talk about curling.
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: Yeah, so I’ll start out by saying up front that I’m no curling expert. So, if you are, please bear with me. But from my understanding, the brooms are used to sweep away debris and clear the path for the stone, okay? And often you’d have two sweepers working to get the stone to where it needs to go. But in 2015, new broom heads completely changed the way that the game was being played.
NEWSCASTER: It all centers around high-tech fabrics used in curling brooms. It’s believed certain broom heads manipulate the rock’s path, speed, and even change or stop its direction.
INTERVIEWER: These could be performance-enhancing brooms?
INTERVIEWEE: Yes, that’s very possible…
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: Performance-enhancing brooms.
ROMAN MARS: I love it!
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: So, these new heads–they kind of worked like microscopic sandpaper. And so the sweeper was able to more effectively control where the stone was going. And as a result, they didn’t really need two sweepers like there had been before. And there was some outrage in the curling world, which led to the so-called sweeping summit in 2016, where they decided that this new broomhead was not going to fly.
ROMAN MARS: I love the idea of sweeping, but that’s incredible. Love it.
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: And actually, Roman, in these Olympics–2026–we almost had another broom controversy. But thankfully, earlier this year, the curling world got out ahead of this one and banned a new set of brush heads. So the Olympics should be an equal playing ground with no huge equipment advantage from one team over another.
ROMAN MARS: Thankfully because I really like to watch curling just pure.
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: Absolutely. A curling purist.
ROMAN MARS: Exactly. Thank you, Jeyca. This is fascinating stuff. I appreciate it.
JEYCA MEDINA-GLEASON: Thanks, Roman.
ROMAN MARS: Okay, next up on our Zoom is producer Joe Rosenberg. Joe, what do you have for me?
JOE ROSENBERG: So, Roman, you’ll recall that I did a story about the Titanic last year–the ship, not the movie. And this mini-story is kind of a fun offshoot of that.
ROMAN MARS: Okay, so this is like the Titanic coda that never was.
JOE ROSENBERG: Yeah. Although, to be clear, no one needs to go back and listen to the Titanic episode to follow this story.
ROMAN MARS: But they should because it’s a really good episode. It’s a fun one.
JOE ROSENBERG: Oh, yeah, no, I mean, hey, definitely. It’s the Titanic. Everyone loves the Titanic. And just a quick side note that I actually have, like, 10 Titanic stories, because I found that if a story even just contains the word “Titanic,” suddenly, magically, everyone is, like, fascinated. “The pets of the Titanic!” But really I wanted to tell this particular side-story because the Titanic episode never really had characters we follow on a journey. It was very technical. So today I wanted to correct for that by telling the tale of a single remarkable person named Violet Constance Jessop. And Violet Jessop’s biography has the two things you want in a good story, which is a great fact pattern and it culminates in an incredible climactic action set piece because her life is like Groundhog Day meets Titanic.
ROMAN MARS: Well, that sounds very ominous because I know what happens on the Titanic. So, please continue.
JOE ROSENBERG: Yeah, it is crazy. And yes, scary things will be happening momentarily.
ROMAN MARS: So set the stage for me here. Who is Violet Constance Jessop, other than a woman with an incredible name?
JOE ROSENBERG: So Violet Jessop is born in 1887 in Argentina to Irish immigrant sheep farmers. She is the oldest of six children. And as a young woman, she dreams of becoming a nurse. But then, before she can chase that dream, her father dies and her mother gets sick, meaning very early on, Violet has to become the family breadwinner. And so despite a lifelong fear of drowning and the fact that she has never learned to swim–
ROMAN MARS: [CHUCKLING] And this fact won’t come into play later at all. Okay, go ahead.
JOE ROSENBERG: Not at all. Not one bit. Violet signs up to work as a stewardess on passenger ships.
ROMAN MARS: Okay.
JOE ROSENBERG: And she eventually ends up working as a stewardess specifically for the White Star Line shipping company. And sure enough, in 1911, Violet is assigned to be a stewardess on the maiden voyage of the White Star Line’s newest ocean liner, the largest ship in the world, designed by famous ship designer, Thomas Andrews, sailing under the command of Captain Edward Smith, and described in the press as “practically unsinkable:” The RMS Olympic.
ROMAN MARS: Not the Titanic?
JOE ROSENBERG: Titanic hadn’t been built yet, you know? Or it was being built. And in reality, in this period in the 1900s, these shipping companies are coming out with larger and larger ships, like, every five seconds. And so, at this moment in 1911, the”largest ship ever built” is the Olympic. And tell me if this sounds familiar because on one fateful trip, in September of 1911, on a transatlantic voyage from Southampton to New York, a giant crash and shudder runs through the length of the ship because the Olympic’s steel-plated hull had been severely punctured on its starboard side below the waterline.
ROMAN MARS: I mean, that sounds very familiar.
JOE ROSENBERG: Yeah. And what had happened was that the Olympic had actually collided with another ship, a British naval cruiser. And the damage to the Olympic was actually very serious. But thankfully, only two of her watertight compartments flooded, the rest stayed dry, and the Olympic stays afloat, and very luckily no one is killed.
ROMAN MARS: And so what did Violet Jessop make of this near-death experience or whatever it was?
JOE ROSENBERG: Right, yeah. We don’t know her thoughts at this early stage of the story, but it’s probably something like, “Man, to think I was a stewardess during a gigantic collision on a transatlantic voyage of the largest ship in the world. What a once-in-a-lifetime experience.” But then–I think you see where this is going–fast-forward seven months to April of 1912, when Violet is again picked to be on the maiden voyage of the White Star Line’s newest ship, the largest ship in the world, designed by famous ship designer Thomas Andrews, sailing under the command of Captain Edward Smith, and described in the press as “practically unsinkable:” the new sister ship of the Olympic, the RMS Titanic.
ROMAN MARS: Wow.
JOE ROSENBERG: And the Titanic is actually basically identical to the Olympic–just a tiny bit bigger. And on the Titanic’s inaugural transatlantic voyage, from Southampton to New York, as Violet is in her cabin getting ready for bed and has finished reciting a prayer to protect the ship from fire and water, a giant crash and shudder runs through the entire length of the ship because its steel-plated hull had been severely punctured on its starboard side just below the waterline.
ROMAN MARS: Only this time, it’s an icebreak. At least there’s a little bit of difference there. But I am seeing a familiar pattern playing out.
JOE ROSENBERG: Yeah. And ironically one of the reasons so many people on the Titanic thought she was gonna be fine and delayed getting onto lifeboats was because the Olympic hadn’t sunk, right? And so they thought the Titanic wouldn’t sink either.
ROMAN MARS: That makes sense. I mean, the Olympic had survived this collision and with a gash along the starboard side. So, you know, could an iceberg be any worse?
JOE ROSENBERG: Right, exactly. It sounds less bad, if anything, right? But of course, the Titanic does in fact sink. And this time, a bunch of White Star officers and officials who had been on the Olympic in that first crash are also on the Titanic. And this time they do not survive. They all go down with the ship.
ROMAN MARS: But I hope Violet Jessop survives, right?
JOE ROSENBERG: She does. She does. She actually initially stays in her cabin, but a steward comes down and convinces her the ship is really sinking. And Violet gets out of there. She gets on a lifeboat. And so, by the skin of her teeth, Violet Jessop lives, at which point she is like, “To think I survived the collisions of the Olympic and the Titanic!”
ROMAN MARS: “Sister ships!”
JOE ROSENBERG: “Sister ships! Surely life cannot get any crazier than this!” But then, in 1914…
ROMAN MARS: Oh, you weren’t kidding me, Joe!
JOE ROSENBERG: I’m not kidding you. World War I breaks out. And Violet fulfills her lifelong dream to train as a nurse with the Red Cross, which is the good news. The bad news is that she gets assigned as a medical stewardess on a White Star Line passenger liner, which has been converted for the war effort into the newest, largest hospital ship in the world. And the name of that ship is the HMHS Britannic, which is none other than the third and final sister ship of the Olympic and the Titanic.
ROMAN MARS: This is crazy!
JOE ROSENBERG: I promised you Groundhog Day meets Titanic, and I deliver Groundhog day meets Titanic. And once again, basically the exact same ship–just a little bigger–but, like, really the same. And this time, Britannic is declared to be even safer than the Titanic because, after the Titanic sank, they gave the Britannic a full double-layered hull. But of course, there’s just one problem. Do you want to guess what that is?
ROMAN MARS: Well, Violet Jessop is on board for one thing.
JOE ROSENBERG: Violet Jessop is on board. Violet Jessop has entered the chat, which is how it comes to pass. I hate to say it. One morning, in November of 1916, on a voyage from Southampton to Greece, a giant crash and shudder runs through the length of the ship because its steel-plated hull had been severely punctured on its starboard side below the waterline.
ROMAN MARS: Okay, well here we go. So what was it this time that they crashed into or whatever?
JOE ROSENBERG: Well, they crashed into nothing this time. Or they did in a sense because the Britannic had struck a mine–a German mine. And Roman, I promised you a big climactic action set piece. And here it is because we actually have some tape of an interview Violet herself gave many years later describing what happened.
VIOLET JESSOP: I was upstairs, in the pantry, getting this nurse her breakfast. And all the staff–medical staff–dozens of doctors, you see, and nurses… They were all in the saloon at breakfast, when suddenly… Crash. No sooner did the crash happen that everybody stood up from their table and disappeared. And it was so different to the Titanic where there didn’t seem to be any panicky movement, you know?
JOE ROSENBERG: Famously, on the Titanic, everyone had been kind of very unbothered by the crashing sensation and didn’t believe anything was wrong. But this time around, of course, everyone knows what happened to the Titanic. But they’re also, like, you know, trained personnel on a medical ship in the middle of the war. And so Violet just races back to the cabin where she’d been helping this very sick nurse. And she helps get both herself and this ailing nurse into their coats and then into their life jackets. And they rush toward the lifeboats, but not before Violet goes to grab one highly critical item.
VIOLET JESSOP: After the Titanic, I used to, you know, moan that on the Carpathia–they picked us up–I couldn’t buy a toothbrush. And I couldn’t live without cleaning my teeth, you see? And I must tell you the joke about the family. “Violet, the next time you go on a boat–for God’s sake–it is going to sink. Put your toothbrush in your pocket!”
JOE ROSENBERG: So, while the ship is beginning to tilt and Violet is helping get this sick crewmate to the deck, she’s like, “Wait! One second! I just have to grab my toothbrush!”
ROMAN MARS: That is an amazing detail.
JOE ROSENBERG: I love it. I love it so much. For me, it’s the high point of this whole story. And at this point, although everyone is rushing to the lifeboats, no one on the Britannic is sure yet whether the ship will ultimately sink or not, including Violet, because the ship’s only tilting forward a little. But–and this is just a brutal piece of bad luck–during the voyage, the patients in the ship’s hospital ward had complained about stifling heat. So, against standing orders, the portholes on the side of the ship had been left open. And so after the explosion, even though only four compartments are flooded, Britannic tilts forward just enough that more water from the ocean begins flowing through the open portholes and into the rest of the ship.
ROMAN MARS: I mean, her bad luck truly cannot be stopped at this point.
JOE ROSENBERG: No, it’s brutal. So, while Violet is grabbing her toothbrush, the ship is beginning to sink faster and faster. But eventually she gets herself and her charge onto the deck and into the lifeboats. And almost everyone is now in the boats at this time, and they’re still on the deck waiting for the orders to lower. But as the ship’s angle gets worse, the officers in charge of two of the lifeboats panic and decide to lower their lifeboats just as soon as they’re full–right away–before any order is given. And one of those boats that lowers too early contains Violet Jessop.
VIOLET JESSOP: And after we’ve touched water, everybody jumped out.
INTERVIEWER: Out of the boat?
VIOLET JESSOP: Out of the boat. I said, “Why are they doing that?”
JOE ROSENBERG: Violet, perplexed, looks around to see what it was that everyone else was looking at that made them jump out of the boat. And what’s happening is that the ship’s gigantic bronze propellers are half out of water. And they are still going at full steam. And they are sucking the two lifeboats towards them. And they’re just chopping the lifeboats and everything in their path into bits. So Violet is like, “Oh, [BLEEP].”
VIOLET JESSOP: Well, I was left alone, you see? And I decided which would it be better to be, cut to pieces or drown. I mean, I had to make the decision…
JOE ROSENBERG: So, Violet has this choice, get cut to pieces or drown. And so Violet says, “You know what? I’ll take my chances with drowning.” And she jumps over the side.
ROMAN MARS: But I would assume that’s okay that she doesn’t swim because she must have a life jacket on, right?
JOE ROSENBERG: You would think. But it’s at this point that Violet realizes she has made a rookie mistake.
VIOLET JESSOP: I had this lovely coat. Well, instead of putting the coat over the life belt, I put the life belt over the coat. I’d have killed the passenger that did that. And so when I went into the water, I went down miles with the weight of clothes and came up under the boat. And I got a terrible blow on the head. And it did occur to me, if I get another like that, I would be finished…
ROMAN MARS: Oh my god. This is terrifying. So she’s, like, stuck underwater, underneath the boat.
JOE ROSENBERG: She is stuck underwater, underneath the boat. And she is still heading along with the boat toward the spinning propellers. And she’s incredibly disoriented. And she describes the noise as just being beyond anything she’d ever heard. But she kicks her way clear of the bottom of the boat and clear of suction of the propeller just as the lifeboat gets chopped to pieces.
ROMAN MARS: Amazing. It’s so incredible.
JOE ROSENBERG: Finally, she reaches the surface, still waterlogged in her coat, with her nose just barely out of the water, until she sees another life jacket float by. And she grabs it and manages to steady herself. So, while she’s clinging onto this life jacket in the water, Violet watches again as, this time, the Britannic–the third and final sister ship of the Olympic and Titanic–itself sinks faster and faster into the water. And in some ways, this round is the most terrifying because the Britannic is sinking in much shallower seas than the Titanic had been. So, in this case, the ship is actually longer than the ocean is deep. So the ship’s stern is still sticking out of the water when its bow smashes into the ocean floor. And Violet watches as the whole ship just judders and groans. And writing about it later, she said, “All the deck machinery fell into the sea like a child’s toys. Then she took a fearful plunge, her stern rearing hundreds of feet into the air, until with a final roar she disappeared into the depths, the noise of her going resounding through the water with an undreamt of violence.”
ROMAN MARS: That’s incredible. So, for all those people who were waiting on other lifeboats and people that were still on the ship, did they get off the ship when this happened–when it hit the ocean floor?
JOE ROSENBERG: Yes, so very, very fortunately, before the ship sank, the captain had ordered the propellers to stop so the other lifeboats could get away. And because the ship had only been on its way to pick up wounded, there’s actually very few patients on board. So, 30 people die, but it could have been far worse. And most of those who died were the ones in those two boats that Violet had been on. And so, once again, Violet Jessop is really lucky.
ROMAN MARS: Yeah. Well, it depends on how you look at it. Or also very, very unlucky.
JOE ROSENBERG: No, yes, exactly.
ROMAN MARS: I like your way better, but–
JOE ROSENBERG: Thank you, but some good luck continues because she eventually is picked up by another boat and pulled to safety. And when she gets to shore, she does in fact brush her teeth with her toothbrush, which apparently never left her side. And that’s how Violet Jessop manages to survive the three disasters of the White Star Line’s three sister ships, the Olympic, the Titanic, and the Britannic. And after that, she went on to write a beautifully written memoir only to be published after her death under the title Titanic Survivor.
ROMAN MARS: Well, that’s only, like, the half of it–or the third of it actually. Like, Titanic Survivor is really underselling the whole story.
JOE ROSENBERG: Yeah. I mean, it is quite possibly the most under-informative title of all time. But I also just have to say, as a final note, Violet Jessop is not the only person this has happened to–surviving all three of these ships. She’s kind of the glamorous one. But there was one other guy. His name was Arthur Priest. He was a boiler room stoker for the White Star Lines. And we don’t know much about him, but he actually outdoes even Violet because he survived–get this–four ship sinkings and two major collisions.
ROMAN MARS: Another one of these people where you can’t tell if they’re the luckiest person around you or the unluckiest person in the world.
JOE ROSENBERG: Exactly, like, is their glass of luck half empty or half full? We’ll never know.
ROMAN MARS: But I think the lesson of Violet Jessop is, like, you don’t know if your next ship is gonna sink. The best you can do is just grab your toothbrush and just keep your head above water.
JOE ROSENBERG: Yeah, I think that’s right. I mean, like, even if you don’t know how to swim…
ROMAN MARS: She didn’t know how to swim, Joe!
JOE ROSENBERG: She had tuberculosis when she was young. There was a lung thing. It’s not her fault.
ROMAN MARS: Well, that’s amazing. What a great story, Joe. I really appreciate it. This is fun.
JOE ROSENBERG: Thank you so much, Roman.
ROMAN MARS: Stay tuned. We have one more mini-story after the break…
[AD BREAK]
ROMAN MARS: We are back. And last but not least is our digital director and 99% Invisible City co-author Kurt Kohlstedt. Hey, Kurt!
KURT KOHLSTEDT: Hey, Roman! You know, I remember when we started doing minis and my small contribution was calling them Minis: Volume One and Volume Two and Volume Three. You get it? Volume like audio but also addition. And I just thought that was so clever. Anyway, I’m here to talk about a type of machine called an Art-o-mat. Oh, Matt, as in an automat but with art. I’ve got a picture of it here.
ROMAN MARS: Okay. So it’s like a big glitzy box. It kind of looks like a cigarette dispenser–like an old time cigarette dispenser–but a little fancier and nicer.
KURT KOHLSTEDT: You’re exactly right. If you look closely, you can see that there are these ten telltale columns for, you know, ten different brands of cigarettes. But in the converted Art-o-mat, each column corresponds to a different artist. So, you insert five dollars, you pick a column, you pull this lever, you see the stack shift, and you hear this big thunk as the thing that you want lands in the dispenser. It’s just very gratifying as a tactile experience.
ROMAN MARS: That’s so cool. So tell me about these packs of art. What is contained in a pack of art?
KURT KOHLSTEDT: Well, I have one of these Art-o-mats at my local cat cafe. And I went there and I picked up a funky hole punched flip book, a painting of a chicken, and a woodblock flower print. And those may all seem like very different kinds of art, but they all have one thing in common: their size. Each artwork has to fit in this very specific set of dimensions. And we’re talking precisely three and a quarter inches long by two and an eighth inches wide by seven eighths of an inch thick.
ROMAN MARS: Very specific. I mean, but cigarette packs aren’t the exact same size. You can get, like, filterless cigarettes that are smaller. So why do these have to be the same size?
KURT KOHLSTEDT: Yeah, there are definitely exceptions. But those dimensions are the most common size, and it’s what’s called the “king-sized hard pack.” And some of that convergence around that size has to do with legislation. For example, back in the day, they created this minimum per pack of 20 cigarettes, which sounds kind of weird as a thing to legislate. But the idea was that it would make it more expensive for youths to buy cigarettes. And so you get less kids smoking. And then, of course, with the advent and spread of vending machines, cigarette companies wanted to conform. There’s this incentive because, if all the other brands have packs that fit and yours don’t, your brand is gonna get left out of this very lucrative sales venue.
ROMAN MARS: [LAUGHING] Yeah, because this is where underage children buy their cigarettes.
KURT KOHLSTEDT: Yeah, I mean, I remember those being on the outsides of buildings and thinking, “I could use my lunch money for this.” [LAUGHS]
ROMAN MARS: So, where did this idea of the Art-o-mat come from? Is this just at your cat cafe or is it more widespread?
KURT KOHLSTEDT: No, it’s more widespread. It actually started with this artist named Clark Whittington who, back in the ’90s, had this idea to make art more accessible by vending it out of machines, like you would with junk food. And then he moved to Winston-Salem, also known as Camel City, which is the hometown of R.J. Reynold’s Tobacco Company. So here he is in the heart of big tobacco land, but at a time when there are more and more regulations restricting cigarette vending.
ROMAN MARS: As there should be.
KURT KOHLSTEDT: Yeah, I mean, it wasn’t a bad thing. And so Whittington sought out a disused machine, and he converted it to spit out Polaroid prints that he tacked to blocks of wood and made part of this local art show. And that was the very first Art-o-mat.
ROMAN MARS: Well, this sounds very cool–very clever. And I’m sort of wondering though–you know some of our rules on this show when it comes to telling design and clever stories–is that this sounds a little bit like a DWAP.
KURT KOHLSTEDT: Yes. Yes. The old “Dude With A Project.” That old tripwire.
ROMAN MARS: So, for people who don’t know, I kind of have a rule about these things we call Dude With A Project because we wanted to cover everyday design that you encounter and that you don’t notice. And Dude With A Project-type design stories are often just, like, clever, fancy things that people put out in the world. Maybe it’s a provocation–a design provocation. Maybe it’s something beautiful or artistic. But this was a thing that I felt other design shops covered well and we didn’t need to cover. So why would you want us to cover Art-o-mats?
KURT KOHLSTEDT: Yeah. Well, I think you are 100% right that that is definitionally what we’re talking about here. Like, this started as a dude with a project. But these Art-o-mats–they’ve gotten a lot bigger as a project and, frankly, a lot more interesting because that one machine led to another and another. And now, decades later, there are over 200 Art-o-mats around the country, even a few internationally. And they have works by over 400 different artists.
ROMAN MARS: So it’s a dude with a big project.
KURT KOHLSTEDT: Yeah, it’s dude with a big project! But it’s not just that because, for his part, Whittington figured out that he couldn’t just do it on his own, so he created this organization to also oversee the Art-o-mats because, frankly, it outgrew his ability to manage. And so today, there’s a lot of work by various people that goes into reviewing and collecting these blocks of art, pairing machines with venues, keeping them stocked, keeping them in working order… And if you think about it, they have this sort of bigger and richer design story about reuse behind them. And you know me, I’m a big sucker for adaptive reuse, whether it be in architecture or vending machines.
ROMAN MARS: Well, I’m sold. This sounds like an interesting dude with an interesting project that sort of brings out some of the things you might not notice and adds some sort of color around the built world in an interesting way. So, if people are interested in the Art-o-mat, where can they find out more?
KURT KOHLSTEDT: Artomat.org. And the site has stuff like a map of these vending machines around the country. It was a really good map. And the people who run the places with these machines are often really cool to talk to you. And so it just gives you an excuse to go somewhere and interact with this thing and learn something new and, you know, maybe get a painting of a chicken while you’re at it.
ROMAN MARS: I’m always into buying art. People, if you have any money left over at any moment in your life, you should always buy art. And why not buy it from a cigarette machine?
KURT KOHLSTEDT: Why not? Better than cigarettes!
ROMAN MARS: Much better than cigarettes, that’s for sure. Thank you, Kurt.
KURT KOHLSTEDT: You’re very welcome, Roman.
ROMAN MARS: 99% Invisible was produced this week by Jeyca Medina-Gleason, Joe Rosenberg, and Kurt Kohlstedt. Edited by Jayson De Leon. Mix by Martín Gonzalez. Music by Swan Real. Fact-checking by Graham Hacia.
Special thanks to Jesse Billingham for the recording of Violet Jessop.
Kathy Tu is our executive producer. Delaney Hall is our senior editor. The rest of the team includes Chris Berube, Emmett FitzGerald, Christopher Johnson, Vivian Le, Lasha Madan, Kelly Prime, Talon and Rain Stradley, and me, Roman Mars.
The 99% Invisible logo was created by Stefan Lawrence.
We are part of the SiriusXM Podcast Family, now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora building… in beautiful… uptown… Oakland, California.
You can find us on all the usual social media sites, as well as our own Discord server. There’s a link to that, as well as every past episode of 99PI, at 99pi.org.
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