The Dutch artist Erik Hobijn created something years ago that is so elegant and thought provoking, so shockingly glorious and well-executed, that it still causes a stir when its exhibited:

Delusions of Self-Immolation coats the skin of the willing volunteer in flame-resistant gel, then sets them on fire. Sets. Them. On. Fire.

This is the secret wet dream of the misanthropic deeply morbid machine-art loving soul of this author. It is goddamn beautiful.

From an interview with the artist:

There are three states on the machine which I call “rare”, “medium”, and “well done”. “Rare” means you survive without any wounds. “Medium” is more for, say, the SM session or for people who like pain to understand parts of life, or to have this experience of pain. The third possibility is death. It is possible to die in this machine; I just have to change the liquid, and I have to change the timing.

There is nothing that will make you feel more alive than art that can kill you.

[via the always superlative We Make Money Not Art and the lovely @evacide]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 6th, 2011 at 6:25 pm and is filed under History, Neat Stuff, Robot Overlords, Robot Rock, Sometimes We Deal In Kinetic Art, Style, Videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.