The Rotating Kitchen by Zeger Reyers started rotating last Friday and will continue to rotate until February 28th 2010.
Rotating Kitchen art piece
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Risk of Rotation is why I bolt everything in my kitchen down. I'll have to show this to my wife as evidence that I'm not crazy.
Really makes you think about the human condition, doesn't it?
I believe this happens naturally in California.
Looks like my kitchen after preparing thanksgiving dinner
If you just wanted to throw concept of art into an abattoir there are easier ways to rotate knives than spin the whole kitchen.
Rotate your monitor at the same rate as the kitchen! Poltergeist!!!!
Interesting, but it is a bit leeky.
*Seriously, am I the only person who is pleased that the first object to break the 6th wall was a leek?*
Increadible - I love it.
Martin Kersels - tumble room - 2001
Deitch Projects.
Was that a LEAK the first thing that LEAKED?
No, seriously, now I realise that what my girlfriend has been doing all this years is art.
Should have had a cat come streaking out of there at some point.
I'll just crank the volume on this now and scare the crap out of my room mates.
They should call the installation:
"The Effects of The Bush Administration on Middle Class Household"
think theres a significance to the stopping date?
Leekspin.
Most of the variance in my interest for this is consumed during the first rotation. I imagine subsequent rotations would have much less appeal, apart from the smell of rotting food.
I feel sorry for the food.
Just like mine but somehow not quite as messy. What they need is to add a drunk, passed out artist. That would be worth watching.
Somehow read Rotating Kitten, and expected Hirst microwave nightmares.
Isn't that food going to rot?
So many thoughts!!:
*yep, building this in to new house.
*Interesting to see how quickly the lights went out.
*Would LOVE to see webcam on this to check in every week or so.
*How big a mess will it make outside the cube? Are they cleaning up the rotted food?
*Wow, all 5 senses involved and then some.
*Where's Fred Astaire? Or at least Lionel Richie?
I don't know art, but I know what I don't like.
Yeah, if you missed the opening then there probably wouldn't be much point after, say, a week.
It reminds me of something Ayn Rand would put in one of her novels as an example of "bad" art.
Hopefully, there's a camera in it and the video of the audience will be the real art piece.
I was thinking about a world to describe it... pointless maybe?
Modern Art WTF?
they need to get Loituma to stand there and sing this over and over: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4om1rQKPijI
“Young people everywhere have been allowed to choose between love and a garbage disposal unit. Everywhere they have chosen the garbage disposal unit.”
-Guy Debord
You'd figure they would have sealed the entire front side with Plexiglass or something similar. I predict a majority of the loose contents will end up being dumped out the front.
Absolutely fantastic way to clean out your cupboards!!
The audience are all art-trendies who had never seen a kitchen before.
I have a feeling the patrons would not have appreciated my laughter.
*high five*
I might just be unsophisticated or something, but this doesn't strike me as "art" or anything even remotely similar. I'd be more impressed if they named it something like 'Study of the effects of gravity' or 'Giant blender that looks like a kitchen.'
And here I am telling the kids to clean off their plates.
Fail @ 5:13
A full zeppelin wind screen on an indoor shoot? I mean, c'mon.. if you really need the workout...
Oh, yeah.
The kitchen thing is interesting too.
kmoser, if they sealed it, you wouldn't get to hear those awesome sounds it makes.
I think the light bulb will either start a fire or get popped by something falling on it.
Unfortunately, this probably makes more sense that alot of 'modern art', but this would probably be more fitting as a Brainiac experiment.
I generally take a very wide, inclusive view of what's "art." Wide as it is, this nonetheless falls outside it.
I'm willing to accept that there may be some point to it that's not readily apparent; maybe the thing will completely fall apart and disintegrate by 2-28-10, thus making some kind of blindingly obvious point about the transience of middle-class comfort.
Or better yet, maybe he built a surprise of some kind into the mechanism, so that when it breaks open there will be something awesome inside like a bunch of puppies or something.
Until then, I'm filing this under "poseur crap."
Art doesn't necessarily need to be insightful, poignant, or communicate something the least bit important.
It can just be for fun. I had fun watching it. How else would you get to see what it looks like to turn a kitchen over and let everything smash and roll around?
how about it's shitty art that completely plagiarizes the work of another artist?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMXS1OyQ0_M
Statements that are apt to have you taken less seriously by BoingBoing readers:
"That's not art!"
"How is this a wonderful thing?"
"Meh." (offered as an unsolicited opinion)
"Music today is CRAP!"
"You kids get off my lawn!"
"Palin/Beck 2012!"
Actually, this is genius! The rhythms of the subtle rotation of the box, combined with the spontaneous crashes of the contents. It's almost soothing. The Human fascination for destruction. The inclination to study the predictable and try to yet predict, hence we all stare to see if something we DIDNT expect to see might happen, Even though the odds are against. To see what we are familiar with being subjected to something unexpected. A lot of thought going on in this art piece. Zeger Reyers is highly brilliant! Great work!
I think I would get more enjoyment out of this istallation if the artist was confined to the kitchen for the entire run, constantly trying to clean up the inevitable mess.
Freely admitting that I don't get this at all.
I suppose it's quite possible that the food is all plastic replicas...anybody know? It would eliminate the possibility of vermin, stench, and various biological goo from eating the piece and chasing people out of the gallery.
Given the amount of dashing behind the installation to jigger the controls after it stops at about 5:00, I'd bet my lunch money that the mechanisms will have failed long before the end of the installation. While there are most certainly exceptions, artists don't generally make good engineers, and vice versa.
What little manages to stay in the cube at the end date will likely be little more than plastic flotsam. Sure hope they at least try to recycle it. (I rather agree with the posters on the Today and Tomorrow page...seems like it would have been better served to donate the considerable cost to a charity...hey, just buy an oven for a family who can't afford to replace the one that gave up the ghost a few months ago.)
I would, in all seriousness, be interested in reading an explanation of the piece, provided it wasn't a long-winded stream of high-brow diatribe that was obviously pulled out of someone's ass in the hopes it sounds erudite.
@34 Are you sure it's plagiarism? There could very well be a big sign attributing the first artist that did it in the gallery. I can understand why another artist might be inspired to replicate the installation in another location - this is the sort of art that can and should be periodically redone for the entertainment of new audiences.
1) So that's where they prepare food for revolving restaurants.
2) They truly wimped out. Where's the fridge?
3) I can see why no one has tried this with a rotating bathroom.
Mmmm. I like smashworld.
I don't think I've seen anything I love this much since the big Francis Bacon show at the Met. Moreso here - entropy, Kienholz-ish simulacrum, humor...when the first objects fell prey to gravity, I chuckled, and then laughed and laughed like a nut (I'm tired & hafway through my post work Screwdriver, ok?) as it all went to hell.
Meanwhile, and only slightly off topic: why does BoingBoing hate the target: _blank attribute? I love BoingBoing to death, and yeah, I can apple-click links but why must all BB links open in the same window? Just whining, carry on.
Rotating Kitchen.... in 1 minute!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YEeVSaDF6w
Just you wait until Mama gets home from the hairdresser!
Rotating Kitchen.... in 1 minute!
No Yakety Sax?
I love it. I don't know anything about this artist or any other artist that has created rotating rooms, however they've been around since Chaplin had one built waaay back in the day so I don't think this artist would be plagerising anymore than the previous bunch of artists that have done something like this.
This one is very well excecuted though. The room looks like a proper room much more so than others I've seen similar.
To those that say this isn't art I ask, what the hell is it then? You may not like it, but then again you probably hate a lot of art if you're the sort of person that says "that's not art" in the first place.
--
BoingBoing doesn't use target: _blank because it's not compliant to web standards and is considered an invasive practice. Whilst you can easily chose to have links open in another window, it's trickier to NOT have links open in a new window with the target: _blank attribute (which I gather is the reason it is not part of the webstandards [which BoingBoing loves]).
I'm personally fascinated, although disappointed that the video ends before getting through one full rotation. I wanted to see the kitchen back at 0/360.
I used to imagine doing this to my own room when I was a kid, similarly to how I used to lie on the floor and imagine living on the ceiling.
One thing this reminds me of: When I was but a wee art student, they had visiting artists and designers come and talk to the art department about their careers. And an old school ad guy came in to show us how they used composite shots for a series of ads for cleaning products wherein there were arcs of liquid flying through the air and ladders falling and stuff like that. And since he was working in the days before Photoshop, they actually built a kitchen they could tilt on its side with the actors in harnesses. (Of course, they didn't want the falling effects, so all the plates had to be glued/bolted down and the light fixtures dangled from rods, not cords, and so on.)
My thoughts exactly. And won't things just keep falling out? Will anyone fix the lights? How will anyone who didn't see the original demolition understand what this is about?
This is very much art. It makes me think a lot more than the pictures of cherubs and maidens at my local art gallery do.
I watched it all. verdict: I like it!
is that colin mochrie in the front row at 5:15?
Hmm. It takes a pneumatic assembly 3 minutes to accomplish what a determined 3-year-old can do in 1.
This kitchen is and/or has a very volatile frame of reference.
1) I'm reminded of that moment in my childhood, watching yet another adorable animal destroy a kitchen in some Disney film. That was the first time I realized that some grown-ups have really stupid ideas about what's fun to watch.
2) It does give me a deeper idea of what the tower of babel represents. People forget what's important, what's interesting, what's meaningful. Really, is there anything to this piece that's a surprise to anyone? I can't imagine that anyone who's ever had to clean up a really filthy kitchen would appreciate this very much.
3) Rotating rooms are still cool. It's the illusion that makes them cool. After the first frame, this stops being a room, and reverts to being just a very large cement mixer.
Made me think of the galley of the SS Poseidon. They should have tossed a Shelly Winters look-alike in there!
If a pointless and silly but nonetheless totally awesome idea, well-implemented, is not art... then to hell with art.
I've cleaned up plenty of really filthy kitchens in my life time and I can't say this was even a thought that crossed my mind until you mentioned it. Why would you look at a piece of art and consider you needing to clean it?
Why would you look at a piece of art and consider you needing to clean it?
You don't look at the Mona Lisa and think about plucking your eyebrows?
All I see is a bunch of well to do yuppies gawking at a waste of food.
Rotating Kitchen With Yakety Sax
http://bennyhillifier.com/?id=1YEeVSaDF6w
Since he nicked it Kersels who nicked it off Kubrick, I thought I'd bring it full circle, as it were:
http://www.vimeo.com/7955259
There again I sort of nicked it myself....
http://www.vimeo.com/3809919
Huh.
Loved Kersel's (and he's a hoot to see talk), but it immediately struck me that the rotating kitchen has one aspect that Kersel's didn't.
Food.
Rotating 'til February.
Mmmm...
Funny how the kitchen looks clean when upside down.
I experienced something very similar to this during the 1994 Northridge earthquake but I had no idea how avant-garde I was at the time...
Nice! All it needs is The Blue Danube.
Because I simply had to, I present the Unrotated Kitchen. A bit of MPlayer/MEncoder goodness for cropping and frame extraction/rehydration, coupled with a custom anti-rotation script to handle the fits and starts of the device resulted in a video that came out pretty good (though rather low-resolution).
I just love videos that represent altered frames of perception. I hope you guys like it too; Enjoy!
I like this a lot, and I usually have a very low tolerance for art. It's just so joyfully destructive and surreal, it makes me happy!
That is the slowest rotating kitchen i have ever seen :-S
Oh, drat... looks like #64 beat me to the punch. :)
I really want to see a combo washer/dryer unit in there with the washer running and a full load sitting in the dryer. Furthermore, the "streaking cat" that was posted in comment #11 would be sleeping on the clean laundry in the dryer.
Wow. I love all the people who comment to say that this isn't art.
Would you care to share your definition with us? Does it need to make a statement about the world, perhaps? So art can't just be things that are fun to look at? Does the Mona Lisa make any statement about the world, or is she just fun to look at?
Note: I'm sure someone could easily spout something interesting about why this is just more than "fun to look at" -- the destruction of the suburban family weltanschauung or something -- but it doesn't matter. Being fun to look at is reason enough.
I'm not sure about the *whole world*, but the Mona Lisa is more than just a pretty picture; it embodies many elements of Leonardo da Vinci's personal philosophies about nature and feminine beauty.
"Note: I'm sure someone could easily spout something interesting about why this is just more than 'fun to look at' -- the destruction of the suburban family weltanschauung or something -- but it doesn't matter. Being fun to look at is reason enough."
Then why do you care if people think it's art or not? You're having fun! Let go. Let the snobs have their stuffy, unfun debates.
That said, why does art have to be thoughtful or "just" fun? Can't be it both? Can't, in fact, the thoughtfulness be the source of the fun? I find good, thoughtful art very fun!
Remarkable piece...
you are a funny man
Because it's not the stuffy snobs who say that this isn't art, it's people like commenters here (and everywhere) who say things like "How is this Art?" as a put-down, suggesting that if it isn't "art" then it's not worth anyone's time. The problem with this is that not only is the argument wrong, but their very premise is wrong. Of course it's art.
The "stuffy snobs" at the opening have no problem with this being art, and probably find it great fun to watch.
Right... that's what I said in my comment. That there are very interesting statements one can make about this, but it is also jolly fun to look at.
If it is meant to be art....then it is art! I like it!
A very interesting piece (of art)
evokes:
kitchen as centre of domesticity--overturned==>resonances with food policy, low CO2/peak oil changes
the turning of the earth and its 800 million starving humans
the passive complicity of the audience with this destruction of a viable food preparation area, and the food, destined to rot.
and art as a kind of washing machine, spinning our expectations, uprooting our certainties, turning the world on its head.
A decadent spectacle, but not unenjoyable. Very clear messages, from where I'm looking.
Nice that it's sited in Dusseldorf, heartland of German industrial production.
En avant l'apocalypse!
That's bloody awesome dude. Nice job!
I'll stick a link in again, just in case some people skip to the end of the the comments.
Rad video by Mr Science
Can you do that to my ex's place?
All I have to say is next time they want to destroy a kitchen, just have them call me, I'll do for 10$ in ten minutes... And have fun doing it.
Also, the pots on the wall lasted a long time, bravo pots, bravo!
That is effing hilarious. It's so weird when you just keep rotating your screen with the kitchen xD
this is art.
the kitchen is a symbol of the human condition, our affect on the natural world; earth.
When the everyday household items are taken out of their normal environment, they are garbage. you slowly see it conquer the clean white backdrop, which on a micro scale can represent humanless earth.the video ends after overtaking everything, including the light, or on another level last hope.the two opposing sides facing eachother; the white, crisp, clean kitchen (or in other words the unassuming planet) and the sheer garbgage of material people have brought to it. basically saying "this is what we, as the human race are doing. this is what we are bringing to this planet as we further transform into this corporate disposable product based society."
a sample of this piece (or at least video) should somehow be placed in each & every ikea store of the planet.
bravo
excellent piece
this is quite exact. thank you for clearing that up for those who did not quite see...
Will they be posting this after a complete rotation? or maybe a few?
Like!
This is exactly what I don't like about art. It took a lot of effort and planning to put this together, but it accomplishes nothing. It reminds me of my very annoying art appreciation class in college. It's second only to the essay I had to write about the kids licking jam off of a vw bug in New York and calling it art. Come on. If someone could please explain to me how this is beautiful, or life altering, or relevant in any way, I'd love to hear it.
I wonder how a time lapse video of this over the months would look? Like a giant front-load washing machine?