Comments on: Punking Brussels

By: adam

adam — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 07:32:24 +0000

great public art? try the moscow metro, it’s absolutely stunning:

By: :o)

:o) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 01:02:47 +0000

Pretty damn funny. I’m actually surprised at the lack of shrieking from Finland – perhaps, due to the low clarity of the photos, they didn’t yet “get” the fact that the armed drunk is a jab at their crazed, drugged, armed school shooters of recent months (Matti Saari and that other oaf from Youtube)…

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:24:27 +0000

Squat toilets + trousers/pants = anxiety at best, disaster at worst. So unless you plan on radically altering the mores of Euro-American male dress, good luck with your advocacy…

By: ajay

ajay — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 11:03:55 +0000

43: memorials in general, yes. But the Sydney Opera House is definitely functional – just because it is designed for the purpose of holding art doesn’t mean it’s art itself. A TV set shows art, but the set itself isn’t art, is it?
sg: The Statue of Liberty, according to Wikipedia at least, was funded by public donations and fund-raising events, not by government money (which I think is what John M meant by public funding).

What about the vast amounts of music commissioned by various rulers and governments?

By: Tracy W

Tracy W — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 12:53:21 +0000

After growing up with western throne-style loos and then travelling a lot in South-East Asia, when it comes to public loos I prefer squat toilets, at least in climates that are warm enough for me to just wear a skirt (as opposed to wearing a skirt with two layers of long johns underneath). Being able to go to a public toilet and only needing to touch any bit of it with the soles of my shoes is very nice. I wish they were far more widespread in the West.
I am however a Western female with all the social advantages that brings, and have reasonably strong leg muscles. I can understand that others’ mileage would vary.

By: MH

MH — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 22:02:48 +0000

Aside from everybody else’s (accurate) complaints about squat toilets, I’m pretty sure that if adopted widely in the U.S., they would kill the print media. Really, there’s only one reason I get one magazine and the Sunday paper in hard copy and no just on-line.

By: sg

sg — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:36:55 +0000

John M – what about the Statue of Liberty? That wasn’t designed by Picasso. Also there are public toilets in NZ by Gaudi(?), and their interior is definitely artistic.

Also, Bus stops in Russia can be quite splendid, at least according to that website that keeps a record.

I have used squat toilets extensively while I lived in Japan, and in general they stink and are difficult to clean, which is probably why american plumbing codes don’t allow them. It’s a testament to the Japanese sense of cleanliness that they don’t stink more. Also, they’re hell for old people. They also I would maintain require a childhood training to be able to use comfortably. I have seen a Japanese woman sleep while squatting (not on a toilet; at a rock concert). That’s a lifetime of training for you! One shouldn’t expect people who haven’t had such training to attempt such things!

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 20:17:35 +0000

@39 Charlie, I’ve used squat toilets, and the memory of the disagreeableness of them has remained with me over the past 24 years. They were not more comfortable when I was 18, and had good knees and strong leg muscles, and I’m not interested in trying the experiment now that I’m 42 and have bad knees.

By: John M.

John M. — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 13:16:19 +0000

Guernica (and generally the Spanish Pavilion at the ‘37 Paris Expo) – Yes, interesting that Picasso is still the only example so far from the 20th Century and on that point: Michelangelo’s David & The Oath of The Horatii stretch the concept of public funded somewhat but they have to be conceded. The Eiffel Tower on the other hand has come up before and is deemed too controversial – yes, it is very, very famous but it’s very, very ugly (Maupassant allegedly ate lunch there every day on the grounds that it was the only place in Paris from which he could not see it). Chartres and the Cathedrals of Europe are ruled out on the basis outlined above of not being solely artistic endeavours.

By: roy belmont

roy belmont — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 06:14:26 +0000

#51:
Feeling a little dyspeptic are we?
Squatting is a way more efficient and comfortable way to deliver fecal deposits.
Pooping in the woods into a scooped-out hole is the most natural and easeful way to go as well as being the most efficient, the posture the body is in while doing so is the least obstructing and most poop-facilitating.
Squat toilets echo this.
And since when you squat your butt doesn’t contact anything but the back of your own personal legs, and the only contact you have with anything already in there is at the bottom of your hopefully shod feet, viola, more sanitary.
The sanitariness of the facility itself is a function of its custodial and proprietary agencies. An ill-maintained squat toilet is squalid, but then so’s an ill-maintained sitter.
In the squat all other factors being equal germ contact from body to plumbing surface to next body is way less.
Americans have this fetishized relationship with their pee and poop, and with the gleaming white porcelain and shiny tiles of those special rooms which they call “bath” rooms even when there’s nothing in there but a toilet and a sink. And it’s really hard for lots of them to get past the subconscious nausea triggers when they contemplate other forms of eliminatory plumbing.

By: MH

MH — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 05:21:41 +0000

I always wanted a squat toilet so I could see if I could get the dog to use it.

By: notsneaky

notsneaky — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 05:14:39 +0000

“Squat toilets are comfortable, functional, and far more sanitary than seated toilets”

The hell they are. That’s like this Utne reader article my exgirlfriend made me read once about how cutting grass with an old fashioned scythe was more … “spiritual” … than doing it with a regular gas lawnmower. I.e. not if you actually have to use it.

They’re very obviously NOT more comfortable, functional in the above sentence is redundant and I’m not even gonna go into the obvious reason why they’re not more sanitary.

By: Keir

Keir — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 00:09:10 +0000

My youngest brother and I have been challenging people for quite a few years now to name any piece of public funded art that can be truly considered great.

The Oath of The Horatii; Guernica (and generally the Spanish Pavilion at the ‘37 Paris Expo); Michaelangelo’s David. The Eiffel Tower. Chartres and the Cathedrals of Europe.

By: Charlie

Charlie — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:20:47 +0000

Squat toilets are comfortable, functional, and far more sanitary than seated toilets. I wish they were permitted by north american plumbing codes, because I would certainly instal one in my house.

I find it odd that people are so divided by defecatory issues. When I was in Thailand, I must have heard hundreds of horrified westerners wax shocked over the toilets, westerners who had spent the previous night at a ‘ping pong’ show…

By: Zamfir

Zamfir — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 20:48:51 +0000

The whole point of the installation is that they are tired stereotypes, and that people really do think in these ways of other countries. For a number of the stereotypes, I found that my own images of the country were hardly more advanced than this. I really couldn’t tell a lot about Luxembourg, Romania, Lithuania or Malta besides the stereotype. In that sense I am afraid the guy really hit a sore nerve of the European union and its problems, way beyond a cheap joke.