Modern art machine that smells like cat shit

Imagine a machine of polished steel and high tech electrical wiring where you insert a nice dinner in one end and receive human feces on the other end. Well dream no longer, wake up and smell the crap: it's called "Cloaca #5" and it's in an art gallery near you. Belgian creator Wim Delvoye has produced eight such shit producing machines since the mid-1990s. Cloaca, Greek for sewer, imitates the human digestive system thanks to daily injections of a delicate mix of bile, acids and bacteria. Its diet varies depending on its host country. In France, five-star chefs poured fine cuisine down its stainless steel pallet. In less sophisticated places, the beast only gets leftovers from local cafeterias.

The endless and regular dumps (of both food and waste) is seen by some as a critic for the capitalist system. Others find it a perfect metaphor for contemporary art. The machine has no opinion and no purpose.

Number five has just left the exhibition hall of l'Université du Québec à Montréal (aka UQÀM). On the last afternoon of the show, a Saturday, the place was packed with all sort of people. Lots of young children bouncing around, over excited at the reverence adults were giving to their favorite subject matter. Some of the smallest kids had to be kept from sticking their fingers into the machine's production. A pungent whiff of cat shit mixed with freshly brewed coffee and high flying intellectual interpretations.

Is it like a Tamagotchi? You know, those fashionable electronic pets from Japan that sold millions a decade ago, where you had to keep caring for your toy or it would die. And how about the fact that Canadian tax payers subsidized this piece - of art - to the tune of 30 000 CAN$ (24 000 USD)? And what's the use of art anyway? And does everything need to have a purpose? Is there beauty in uselessness, even if it smells like cat poo?

http://www.cloaca.be/
http://www.wimdelvoye.be/cloacafactory.php#