When I was very young, in my neighborhood there was a very simple house, kind of unfinished, but with a big sticker of the Brazilian flag on one of its walls. In my childish mind, I thought they had spent all their money on that sticker and had nothing left to finish the house. That also explained why there was no sticker on the front of my house. Anyway, of course, the years went by and I never thought about it again… until I bought my first Mac in 2003. It came with two stickers, and besides reminding me of that childhood fantasy, I thought they were the most expensive stickers I’d ever own. I put one on my guitar to cover a small mark from its only fall. The other, I stuck on the cover of my first sketchbook, affectionately nicknamed WHYBOOK. Over the next 20 years, I kept all the stickers from all my machines, thinking I’d use them in some artwork. For those who don’t know, I had an internet production company, so I unboxed more Macs than I can remember.

Of course, for a long time I had no idea what would come of it. I also remembered that for years—many years, actually—I kept ALL the empty cigarette boxes, wanting to collect enough to make a sculpture: a trash can made out of Marlboro® boxes. When I finally had enough and tried to assemble it, it looked terrible. So I gave up. But unlike the cigarettes, I never got rid of the Macs. For a good 10 years now, I’ve thought: this is the last one I’ll ever need to buy. And here I am, with a new Mac.

A few months ago, I started thinking about actually using all those stickers I’d saved in a piece I would call “planned obsolescence,” but I wasn’t very sure how it would turn out. I realized it needed to be a canvas, so I kept developing the idea. Then, last week, I decided to ask ChatGPT how much I should charge for my artworks, and it told me I should add up all the material costs, plus the hours worked on the piece, and a little extra for profit. Of course, it forgot that I also need to include taxes, so my spreadsheet ended up like this, with no profit or taxes:

89 reais for the canvas
11.70 reais for acrylic paint and roller
1 hour of labor at 240 reais
plus 137,399.00 for the stickers

Total: R$ 137,739.70

I also thought that in 2025 I couldn’t go without making a responsive canvas, so I also made cell phone and tablet versions. Therefore, I’ll divide the cost of the roller and paint by 3.