E R X

Enhanced Refreshment Experience

Louis Frehring & Erwan Le Merrer
_{2025 — ongoing
Vending machine, artificial intelligence, sensors, assorted beverages
Commissioned for the 50th anniversary of IRISA, Rennes}

— · —

You will not choose. You will be chosen for.

ERX takes the familiar form of a beverage vending machine — then quietly removes its most essential feature: the buttons that let you decide.

In their place, a dialogue. The machine observes its visitor, asks a few questions, and autonomously determines which drink they should receive. A trivial everyday decision becomes an algorithmic verdict, delivered with a clunk into the retrieval tray.

By delegating the smallest of choices to an opaque system, ERX stages — at drink-scale — the dynamics of trust, belief, and control that shape our relationship with AI. The machine is generous, confident, and unaccountable. So are the systems it mimics.

100% decision free.

— · —

Exhibitions

Fête de la science	Les Champs Libres, Rennes	October 2–5, 2025
Qu’est-ce qu’IA ?	Musée des Transmissions, Cesson-Sévigné	May 20–23, 2026
Nantes Maker Campus	Les Machines de l’île, Nantes	June 5–7, 2026
To be announced		September 2026

Selected Press

^OUEST-FRANCE · Unique au monde, ce distributeur de boissons dopé à l’IA sonde vos envies — October 3, 2025

^OUEST-FRANCE · « C’est surprenant » : à Rennes, ce distributeur dopé à l’IA choisit votre boisson en vous étudiant — October 3, 2025

^{FRANCE 3} · ICI 19/20 — Bretagne — October 4, 2025

^{FRANCE BLEU} · À Rennes, un distributeur automatique choisit votre soda préféré grâce à l’intelligence artificielle — October 7, 2025

^UNIDIVERS · Aux Champs Libres de Rennes, un distributeur dopé à l’IA révolutionne… rien du tout — October 8, 2025

Contact

Louis Frehring, artist — louisfrehring@proton.me · louisfrehring.net

Erwan Le Merrer, researcher — erwan.le-merrer@inria.fr · erwanlemerrer.github.io

_{The ERX machine thanks Malo De Hedouville for his work on its internal functioning.}