The Memento Mori machine is a wooden box with a single button on the front. When a user pushes the button, the box slowly opens up, and a lengthy fortune is printed out on thermal paper. After the user takes the fortune, the box slowly closes.

The fortunes are sourced from New York Times obituaries. The text of the obituaries is altered by switching sentences from the third to the second person, and from past to future tense, thus producing highly unusual and strangely specific fortunes. Each fortune is unique.