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649848 tn?1534633700

Guillotine Artists

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/27/die-guillotine-berlin-artists_n_1459594.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl6%7Csec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D156164

Oh, art. That magical, enigmatic practice that allows you to do anything you want in its name. You could shoot yourself, give birth to a child or lose your virginity for an audience, masturbate in a corner of a museum, or even inject yourself with horse plasma. Anything is fair game.

In Berlin, two students at the Berlin University of the Arts have built a makeshift guillotine that they say they will use to kill a live lamb if the internet wills it so. The artists have set up a website, Die Guillotine, where you can watch a looping video of the guillotine and decide whether or not you want the lamb to die.

There is also a short documentary about the project, which shows the artists smoking a hookah and building their contraption.

The project has garnered a lot of international attention, with more than one million votes already submitted. As of 3:00 p.m. on Friday, the "nein" votes are outnumbering the "ja" votes 594,609 to 476,089, so the lamb might just make it after all. Still, knowing the internet, and the vitriol it can tend to spew, things might turn around. There are still more than two and a half weeks left to vote.

Reuters reported that university spokesmen have distanced themselves from the project, claiming that the students have no plans to kill the lamb even if the "ja" votes win out. Representatives from the Berlin University of the Arts did not return requests for comment.

When asked for comment on the project, a spokesperson for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) submitted the following statement to The Huffington Post:

Even if these students are committing a hoax rather than slaying a sheep, their 'performance' isn't artistic but instead a publicity grab that they may not realize could inspire other wannabe artists to follow through with copycat killings. The one positive thing it has done, though, is spur debate about the slaughter of animals, which takes place out of sight and off the plate. With any luck, this incident may actually cause some people to consider going vegetarian.
Certainly, this is not the first outrageous act committed in the name of art in the past few years, and hardly the first involving the questionable treatment of animals. However, it might be the first project to place the atrocity's outcome in the hands of the internet-at-large.

Dutch artist Katinka Simonse (AKA "Tinkebell") has been killing animals publicly for a few years now, sparking worldwide outrage and petitions begging her to stop. She has hung baby chicks up on a wall, killed live dogs and turned them into stuffed ones, and even killed her own pet cat and turned it into a handbag, rather than having it euthanized at the vet.

"Most people walk around with leather bags and shoes," she said in an interview (below) with AVRO public broadcasting. "And there is not a single cow who had a good life before it became a bag." She says when she walks by a Burger King in town, she wants to "puke" just thinking about "an animal that came from a factory and what happened to it."

Some of Simonse's hate mail was collected into a book, "Dearest Tinkebell," which she claims contains only 1 percent of the letters she's received during her career.

In San Francisco, the artist Tom Otterness was recently denied one of two sculpture commissions because in 1977 he "bought a shelter dog, tied it to a fence, and shot it on camera." Though he has repeatedly apologized for this project, it continues to resurface and anger animal rights advocates.

11 Responses
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163305 tn?1333668571
I don't see this as art either.
The shock value gets these people attention.

I'd like to point out that although it's mentioned that they're students, nowhere does it say that this project has anything to do with their classes or whether it has any connection to the school at all.

It's just plain creepy.
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
I don't know why or how this came to me, but what if this guillotine thing is part of another course they are studying, like sociology or something?  They are purporting this act and gathering information for another class?

Either way, I don't think this classifies as art.  
Helpful - 0
973741 tn?1342342773
Poor animals.  I do feel badly that they are slaughtered in all kinds of ways or killed . . . testing our medications, medical procedures, to now to test weapons for the military (didn't know that.  My cousin's job is computer similation to do those things for the military . . .  much better).  I guess I agree with Amanda, I put human life over animals and if there is gain for all in the act, I can live with it.  Don't want to see it or think about it.  And would rather they come up with a better way to 'practice' or learn.  I'm an animal lover----  so it does bother me.  But I also eat meat and am thinking those slaughter houses aren't so great either.  Ugh.  I'm having salad today!

But, what is different about that and this . . . is that these kids are proud of their work and putting it on the internet to 'vote' for what should happen to the lamb.  And they are professing that it is art!  ART!  

At least the military knows that the public would be disgusted.  They are not looking to get an A on it from a professor!
Helpful - 0
377493 tn?1356502149
Yeah, I would feel the same way.  I am actually not anti hunting or anything. I do believe in the natural cycle of life and am fine with people hunting/killing animals for food, etc.  I do have a problem when the killing is unnecessary, or for trophy, training or just plain cruelty.  I do put human life above animals, so sometimes I believe it is necessary to sacrifice an animal to save humans.  However, if there are viable alternatives, then that bothers me a great deal.

This "artistic expression' is just plain cruelty to me - no other reason for it.  The military using animals as described above?  I don't see it as quite the same thing, but upsetting nontheless if the alternatives are as good.
Helpful - 0
163305 tn?1333668571
Would you guys feel differently if it were the military blowing animals apart ?

http://www.care2.com/news/member/525884267/3281978

Thousands of live goats and pigs animals are cut apart, shot, and blown up in U.S. military training drills every year even though humane methods like human-patient simulators that provide more effective and realistic training are available and military regulations require that alternatives to animals be used whenever they exist.
Helpful - 0
Avatar universal
When you stoop to confusing lopping a sheep's head off via guillotine as an art form, its time for whoever is funding your education to reconsider.
Helpful - 0
377493 tn?1356502149
You know, I have to wonder how the college itself can not be trying to shut this whole thing down.  We started saving for Ryder's education at birth...is this what we are working so hard to put money away for?  How can this possibly be ok with an institute of higher learning?  Or is this there way of encouraging students to "express themselves".  I'm with you Kay, if something like this happens with my son I'll be doing the same thing! And then I will be adding his college money to my retirement fund.  
Helpful - 0
973741 tn?1342342773
Oh brother.  First of all, I find it fascinating that Tinkerbell refers to her years of animal cruelty as her "career".  Frankly, the lady needs medication and to be hit over the head with her dead cat bag.  

Sometimes I love the internet and sometimes I loathe it.  This story goes into the category of what is wrong with a 'connected' world.  These knuckleheads that lack REAL talent and thus have to do something that really, any psychopath can do in their backyard to get any attention whatsoever (other than from the police) bothers me.  I wish people in general would hold others to higher standards and not respond to these stupid internet games.  

If my boys go to college claiming to be artists and build some medieval killing machine to execute an animal-----  I'm taking them back home and locking them in their room for the rest of their lives!  Yeesh,
Helpful - 0
163305 tn?1333668571
The word art has been stolen.

Although I believe artists create with whatever materials they have available, doing something for shock value, is not, by and of itself, what I call art.


Helpful - 0
377493 tn?1356502149
Well, I have another name for this...

I have to again ask..what is wrong with people?  And beyond the students creating this, what is wrong with the people that would actually go on line and vote.  I just don't understand, and maybe it's better that way.
Helpful - 0
649848 tn?1534633700
I thought art was drawing, painting, sculpting, building, etc... who'd have "thunk" killing would become an art?  
Helpful - 0
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