'Die Guillotine'
Perversity from Germany
April 28, 2012
The two - obviously disturbed - so-called artists Iman Rezai and Rouven Materne, students at the Berlin University of Arts are apparently trying to teach us all something profound about democracy by asking the Internet to decide whether they should guillotine a lamb or not. Iman Rezai and Rouven Materne built their own instrument of death, and they claim if they get enough "ja's" on their site, die-guillotine.com, the poor beast will lose its head.
A video posted on website YouTube on April 18 shows the two students of the Berlin University of the Arts, Iman Rezai and Rouven Materne, building the guillotine and painting it bright pink, yellow and orange.
“The guillotine is the most compact reflection of our society,” Materne said in the video, which also shows one of the men holding the lamb in place beneath the machine’s blade.
The guillotine is designed for decapitation and is most commonly associated with the execution of the French aristocracy during the French Revolution in the 18th century.
The YouTube video drew almost 150 comments, many of which expressed outrage over the plan. German mass-circulation daily Bild called the project “twisted”.
“There were people who wanted to forbid us to do this. There were people who celebrated the idea from day one. And there were some people who were afraid of us,” Materne said in the video.
The University of the Arts, where Rezai and Materne study under Swiss-Japanese artist Leiko Ikemura, sought to distance itself from the project, saying it was not part of the two men’s university-related work.
A spokeswoman for the university also said the two artists had assured the school that their guillotine project was intended as an “artistic provocation” and that they had no plans to kill the lamb, reported the Toronto Sun.
An “artistic provocation” ... ?
In case you want to let them know how you feel about their "artistic provocation", these are their Facebook-pages:
'Die Guillotine'
Iman Rezai
Rouven Materne
'Die Guillotine'
Iman Rezai
Rouven Materne
"....unsere Gesellschaft sieht bunt aus. Sieht gut aus. Aber es ist gar nicht bunt. Und es ist gar nicht lieb. Es ist auch gefährlich. So wie unsere Demokratie. Wir gehen wählen. Die Leute gehen auf die Strasse, sagen
'wir wollen keinen Krieg'. Aber es gibt nun mal Krieg.
Natürlich, ohne Krieg läuft doch nichts!"
A website they set up for the project showed that - sadly - at the moment we are writing this, with 19 days left, more than half of the votes are in favor of a killing of the lamb.
It is quite unlikely that the perverse 'artists' will go ahead with their plan to behead the sheep knowing now that they could face up to three-years in prison for causing the death of an animal 'without reasonable cause'. Dr Elena Kaschubat, official veterinary, has already made an inquiry and has forwarded the file to the judiciary.
As a supporter of animal rights and a sane person, please vote 'NEIN' on their website. Thank you!
Update 28/04/2012 - picture taken from the following source
In the above 'interview', they were asked where the sheep is.
Rouven Materne: in security.
Iman Rezai: we are silent. We cannot say that.
Rouven Materne: until the end of the vote 'it' (the sheep) is in security, then the vote will decide if it remains in security
or if 'it' comes in very high security.
They also said that they were neither vegetarian or vegan (what a surprise).