LOT 2046, 2017—2021

In 2016, consumption became less about choice and more about what algorithms delivered. Brands sold identity. Your feed decided your taste, and discovery evolved into pattern recognition. Against this backdrop, LOT 2046 emerged, shipping monthly packages containing what you needed before you knew you needed it.

HUMAN MACHINE INTERFACE

If the algorithm was a mirror reflecting everything but yourself, could it be built to reflect you?

LOT’s answer was a user driven production system that made consumption an act of co-authorship rather than acquiescence. If identity was increasingly shaped by algorithms, why not build production on top of one? A supply chain based on user input, rather than passive consumption.

FASHIONED BY YOU

LOT's subscription model was an evolving flow of goods tuned to the user. A system where clothing, accessories, and tools weren’t arbitrary purchases but an ongoing dialogue between user and machine. The less you owned, the less owned you.

The first package a user received included a tape measure for uploading specific user preferences. As time passed, the system evolved, tracking inputs and refining outputs.: the more you interacted, the more tailored the experience became.

A user would upload measurements and preferences to the profile, with increasing input options unlocked as more packages arrive.

Known internally as the “ghost,” this generative system was a living portrait of the user, constantly adapting and refining based on changing user preferences.

Over time, items within the subscription would be replaced by better versions, with periodic trophy items rewarding users for their membership.

STORY AS MATERIAL

I joined in late 2017. My role at LOT was to research and develop future products. The responsibilities varied over time. Early on, I put together a zine going behind the scenes of the production process:

Sometimes I made graphics to promote various livestreams we did on YouTube:

And I spent most of my time imagining a system of everyday objects:

OS FOR UBI

I spent hours in our LA Chinatown studio thinking about what tools our ghosts would use to speak to us, and how we’d give our ghosts feedback on our preferences. When universal basic income arrives, what would universal basic supply look like?

In building an operating system where every user preference helped design your life, we were more concerned with the cinema of experience than a collection of things.

If UBI ensured financial survival, LOT wanted to be its material counterpart — not just abstract income, but intelligent provisioning, starting with the inevitabilities of basic essential goods. UBI asked: If survival is covered, what do people do? LOT asked: If you are the main character in your world, who do you become?

Closed in December 2021, LOT was a worldview on self-sufficiency: automate the boring stuff, strip life down to its essentials, make these essentials extraordinary through a symbiotic system of user input, and remove anything that gets in the way of movement, freedom, and focus.

CREDITS

Team: Vadik Marmeladov, Sergey Philippov, Pavel Bulaev, Vladimir Chizhov, Sergey Nochovny, Danylo Dantsev, Luke Crawford, Yagmur Ersayin, Wendy Mendoza, Carolyn Zelikow, Lera Rudaya, Carsten Goertz, Georgia Kareola, Andrew Duffus, Joe Tsao (Body Shop)