Though he has installed a sign alerting customers in the café bathroom that they are being watched, café owner Alexander Khaelssberg remains enthusiastic about the project. You could only see women “while washing or applying makeup,” he said. “95 percent of our clients, whether male or female, find it funny.”
October 23, 2012
"Austrian artist... built an installation at a Vienna café that allowed men in the adjacent restroom to see the inside of the ladies room through a two-way mirror."
Alexander Riegler was simply commenting on our "age of social media and omnipresent video surveillance," the “voyeurism and surveillance in everyday life." What philistines are outraged?
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Reducing women to the sum of their lady parts. That seems like it should be a human rights violation. However, if it is a voluntary abdication of dignity, then perhaps society can tolerate this behavior before it reaches some critical mass.
Well, in leftard lands like austria, the notion of decorum, much less civility and dignity mean nothing in the face of art. Human rights? Piffle. Invasion of privacy? Blasphemy. Art? Indeed all for art. Well, unless you criticize muslims, then it's all downhill from there and Inga will fly all the way over there to ensure that the perpetrator(s) see prison time personally. Cause you know, Austria is her home town yo.
BFD.
When there was a ruling that McSlorey's tavern had to serve woman they agreed.
But they didn't put in another bathroom.
And they took the doors off of the stalls.
There is nothing new under the sun.
What's a little voyeurism in the land of Sacher-Masoch?
Alexander Riegler was simply commenting on our "age of social media and omnipresent video surveillance," the “voyeurism and surveillance in everyday life."
He should have attributed his dirty deeds to LBJ and that damn war.
So eine Schweinerei.
Not quite as dumb as the last time an Artist from Austria made headlines.
Riegler's a regular Wiener.
Inga - please translate more! Like "all men are pigs..." because when a girls speaks German (Austrian?) it make my blood run HOT!
How do you say 'creepy' in Austrian? I'll ask Obama next time he emails.
But speaking of things that make me ask, "Is this even art?" before deciding one way or the other whether it is in fact art, I found this series stunning.
Way back in the late 90's, early 00s, Crunch Gym opened in LA. Very hip place, man. They thought it was real cool that, walking into the changing rooms, the outer walls of the outer showers on both the men's and women's sides formed the corridor into the locker rooms and were designed to allow everybody walking into the locker rooms to clearly see the outline of people showering...or doing anything else. The gay guys figured out how to put that to good use fast. Sometimes, there was way too much information on display. That's Hollywood!
So "Porky's" is art?
Baron Zemo said...
When there was a ruling that McSlorey's tavern had to serve woman they agreed
Thought it was McSorley's.
Gegen Dummheit gibt es keine Pillen.
Also, it's to Austia's credit that they still have sex-segregated restrooms, and haven't succumbed to the Progressive fantasy of unisex everything. Men in dirndls? Who ever heard of such a thing?
Inga - I agree! That's what baseball bats and ballot boxes are for!
Sexist that it doesn't go the other way.
BaltoHvar said...
Inga - I agree! That's what baseball bats and ballot boxes are for!
Spoken like a good little thug.
Gegen Dummheit gibt es keine Pillen.
Aber gegen die Pille, es gibt viel Dummheit.
Bene detto
Just wait until video surveillance is ubiquitous.
I had thought Austrians evolved to the point where all restrooms are unisex and everyone pees sitting down.
Ah, a school boy's dream. Sometimes I think modern art and architecture is just an artefact of extended childhood.
On ne parle pas le hochdeutsche ici!
I had thought Austrians evolved to the point where all restrooms are unisex and everyone pees sitting down.
Aber sinkpinklen ist streng verboten!
Hang out at a big venue with alcohol served and you'll see much the same thing in reverse, as tipsy women start casually invading the men's restrooms. Even the urinals aren't safe, though most guys don't seem to mind. I didn't know it was performance art, though. That changes everything.
I don't believe I have ever had sex with an Austrian. Or Sweden or Denmarkian or Norwegian.
Too white for my tastes.
I may have though if they were a Moroccan who lived in Austria and visited Boston-in that case I probably did them.
First it was the spics and now the muzzies are taking over this state. Every gas station, there they are, talking Muzzie on the phone, and then saying "what up boss"? It's hot and makes me horny.
tits.
Das Klo gibt viele Klowichser.
I'm not sure if the gender is correct, I forgot most of my German.
Titus said...
I don't believe I have ever had sex with an Austrian. Or Sweden or Denmarkian or Norwegian.
How about a Dane? (Need not be a great one)
Wenn ist das Nunstruck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! ... Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput!
Inga said...
Das Klo gibt viele Klowichser.
Dagegen ist hier ein gewachsene Klowichser!
Years ago, I knew of a Hollywood producer who had dressing rooms beneath his hillside pool. The wall between the men's and women's dressing rooms was a one way mirror. One the men's side was a bar with full view of the mirror. It was popular with my college friends. I sometimes wondered if the starlets using the pool and dressing room knew about the mirror.
Isn't this just like being married?
I sometimes get the feeling that the Althouse comment section is a house of mirrors.
One or two-way?
"Built an installation..."
Always a good schlock alert.
And the sun slowly inches closer to the horizon on Western civilization.
Hey! No fair talking about me in Austrianese! I don't sprecht jibberjabber! As Titus's little brown brothers from the south would say..."No hablo, senor. No comprende."
Proof that Democrats are inherently stupid beyond saving...http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021600092
Read it and weep. I dare Garge o just read it, period.
like Adam said I cannot believe that people able to make $6090 in four weeks on the internet. have you read this web page http://Run19.com
Romney @ Red Rocks. Pardon the brief ad and the craptastic site with distracting blinking distractions all over the place to total distraction. This is a few miles from my parents home. My older brother and I climbed all over every single one of the outcropping in the park. My older brother, Barry, was actually born a Gibbon monkey, grew up quite wiry, and didn't attain his fat humanhood until rather late. We went where none dared go, if you discount the thousands of people who climbed around those things before us and left trash, but they don't count because they distract from the drama of the story and the breathtaking scene. Anyway, the video says there were a lot of people there, but you know what?
In the back of the stands where everybody is seated an acquaintance of mine directed the project that redesigned Red Rocks just recently. They did a beautiful job too. Didn't mess it up as I expected. You should go there and see what they did to the place. At the top a very unobtrusive circular brick structure juts up. If you walk around to the back you will notice a single doorway entrance. It does not stick out at all, you can easily miss it because it does not advertise itself. It's a stairway and elevator to below the steps. Gift shops, very nice bathrooms, restaurant. Dinosaur bones apparently dug up on the site, right there embedded in the floor.
When you see the restaurant down there and the patio that opens to the whole back of the park behind the amphitheater where nobody goes, is perfect wide flat surface for weddings or whatever.
But not a single hummingbird in the whole place.
I asked them about that. Challenged them on their tourist inattentiveness, because who would want to see hummingbird?
The gift shop well below where everybody was shown walking up does have a hummingbird feeder in the very back but to my dismay it was neglected.
Morrison. The perfect place for hummingbirds and it's like nobody even cares.
If it is an "installation" then it id OK.
If it is an "installation" then it id OK.
Sexist that it doesn't go the other way.
It does! Indeed the privacy violaton is way worse on the men. You see women applying make-up. Big deal. You see men's faces while they're peeing at a urinal.
Now that's sexist. Women are all making themselves pretty. You're so pretty! Just adding beauty to the world. Meanwhile, men are pissing on everything. That's why we go into bathrooms. Pissing and shitting.
Women are all talking and chatting and putting make-up on. It's like a secret club in there. It's a glass ceiling, that's what it is. You give those poor men a peek into the wonderful, beauty-enhancing atmosphere of the ladies' restroom.
Meanwhile, we're pissing and shitting. I don't know why you'd want to look at that. Although I grant you that we're standing up while we pee. That is pretty impressive. Probably that's the attraction. "Look at man, standing and peeing! He's so capable."
I find it pretty funny, actually. They got a sign. What's the problem? Yay, art.
Drudge has a somewhat misleading caption of Obama saying "HE KNEW".
When you go to the story, its just emails from Benghazi saying we are under attack... its not a John Dean coming forward and saying I was there when Obama was told.
The people that were there save it for a book... there are no John Deans anymore... and thats a damn shame.
It's important that the Althouse commentariat know that there are men in this world (fully grown, apparently normal men who hold jobs and raise families) who will walk into a public men's room, ignore the vacant urinals, walk into the handicap accessible stall, close and lock the door behind them and then stand before the toilet and urinate with exceedingly poor accuracy without having first raised the seat.
When they are finished they will zip up and then leave the restroom without having flushed the toilet or washed their hands.
Were an angel of the Lord to smite them dead right then and there I'd be okay with it.
The whole point of sexual privacy, by the way, is to protect intimacy. So the reason people segregate bathrooms, or frown on streaking, or dislike the orgy, is not because we dislike sex. Everybody likes sex. How can you not like sex? It's sex!
We regulate sex, we have this public-private distinction, to protect intimacy. And we have to protect intimacy because fatherhood is biologically insecure. And we have to protect fatherhood, otherwise we have single moms and dead babies. So it all circles around to abortion, really. Conservatives frown on those damn bathroom peepers in Austria, but this is all subliminated hostility to the infanticide that we figure will happen down the road.
And artists are artists because it's subliminated baby-making. Instead of making babies, you make art. I see this as another battle in the war between artists and the baby-makers.
>"Just wait until video surveillance is ubiquitous."
You haven't been paying attention: it already is.
There was a nifty thriller starring Sean Connery back in the early 70s called THE ANDERSON TAPES, in which an ex-con and his criminal buddies plan and carry out a major heist. Their deeds are captured on a variety of surveillance devices originating with various unrelated entities, but, taken in toto, they tell the tale of the crime from start to end.
The lives of each of us could be similarly assembled today from the panoply of surveillance devices capturing our movements and communications each day.
FWIW -- 'One way' or 'two way' mirrors, (sometimes those terms are used for the same thing), as opposed to regular mirrors, allow a person on one side to see the person on the other side depending on which side is more highly illuminated.
The people on the highly lit side see their own reflections, the people on the dark side see the folks on the brightly lit side.
If the chicks want to see the guys, all they need to do is turn off the lights on their side of the mirror.
I'm sure this has been asked, but why are only men allowed to see into the other restroom? Are women the only ones being surveilled in society? Terrible idea, awfully realized.
Titus, not like it matters because you're a fake anyway, but what does it actually mean that you "did" someone? you don't seem to actually like any actual forms of actual sexual activity. you sound like you're about as much of a virgin as Andy Warhol.
But it's an important commentary on the "age of social media and omnipresent video surveillance," the “voyeurism and surveillance in everyday life."
Sure, so long as the social medial and video surveillance only works for men.
In reality, it's an important commentary on the gullibility of the "elite" and the intellectually barren wasteland called modern art.
I wonder what does a Titus look like? I'm picturing a Philip Seymour Hoffman looking sort of creature.
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