Chad VanGaalen - "Shave My Pussy"

Martijn vanRisse was a medical artist from Swedemark in the earlier part of the last decade. He gained his first bit of fame with his architectural x-rays, life-size of buildings, using lead paint and de-boned livestock. He stepped it up with a sophomore effort in raising awareness of handicapped persons by getting every self-identifying handicapped person in Norway to wear a giant panda suit for a week, the pictures of which were amazing. And of course we all heard about his re-creation of the spread of cancer through the infamous "Garbage Tumour" that he built at the foot of Swedemanish parliament. Eventually had to be fitted with a flashing red beacon at its apex to keep from being hit by passing planes. Always an avid promoter of health, it was not widely known that he smoked for the entire last half of his short life. He had an intense vanity and wanted to keep his weight down at any cost, and smoking seemed to him the most effective. But to make matters worse, he always hand-painted his cigarettes gold. He used to love smoking while making love and to him a piece of smoking gold between his lips was the most erotic thing in the world. It was the combination of carcinogenic fumes from the cigarette itself and the burning gold paint that quickly robbed him of his health. And in the dwindling months of his life, he spent a large amount of that time being examined by doctors, all the while keeping quiet about his habit. His body was breaking down, parts were ceasing to function left and right. So for his final artistic project, Martijn wanted to make something about the hideousness of the dying body. He placed his whole body in a scanner, and bound RFID bands around all the joints, or as he called them, "gates", of his body. Around his wrist, at the base of each finger, but also at the start of his nose, the base of his penis, the wide of his heel. He wanted to signal the passage of blood and other problems from one area of his body to another. He wanted to signal the steps of the body spreading death through itself. So each time blood passed through a "gate", a note would play from a synthesizer connected to the scanner. Some gates were note-gates, some gates were word-gates, where a pre-recorded singer would sing a word. Due to the noise of the machine and the need to be in a dust-free environment, Martijn could never hear the resulting music that would play from his experiment. But it was not the cacophonous death screams I think he imagined. It sounded more like a sloppy summer camp song, sung in rounds, played by tired, happy, sunburnt people.

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(image by Maya Fuhr)