Artists Use $39,000 in Lottery tickets to build a Full-Size H3

Winning the lottery is something that everyone has dreamt about. Even those who stand up proudly and announce “I have never bought a ticket!”, as if this proclamation of financial chastity will win them a shiny bicycle that only rides to heaven, have at some point said, “If I won the lottery, I’d do/buy/go ______.” One thing you never hear is an honest answer from a complete addict. Someone who buys multiple tickets, every week of every year, thinking that their ship is right around the corner of that 7-11 checkout counter. I bet if you took a survey on the reason for the secrecy, the box, “I don’t want to total up how much I’ve wasted.” would get a lot of check-marks.

To point out how much one can waste on this game of (there’s-almost-no) chance, students from the R.I. School of Design created an exhibit called “Ghost of a Dream“. It’s a collection of sculptures constructed out of old lottery tickets (like this full-size Hummer H3) meant to depict the purchases of potential winners. It’s like being scolded by your parents if they had both a master’s in sarcasm and art. Ouch. Make the jump for the story.

When you play the lottery for a long time, the last thing you want to do is add up the cost of all the tickets you’ve bought, and think about what you could have done with that money. Luckily, in the 21st Century, math is obselete. Your wasted sum of money can now be presented with visual aids; car art. Lauren Was and Adam Eckstrom wanted to show people exactly how much can be wasted on the lottery.

There were numerous pieces (including a $70,000 house) but the one that caught our eye was the full-size re-production of a Hummer H3. It’s made from $39,000 of used, worthless, paper losers. The irony of the whole thing is that with the money spent on these tickets, hoping to win enough to buy this dream car (like the H3), you could have gone out and bought a real H3. Sarcasm has gone green.

Source: Ghost of a Dream