If the US art group is valuing them at $45,000 perhaps they'll bill the MAGALouts this amount for the one they destroyed.
PSA: The 2020 monolith is a dead meme. You can stop putting them up now. Please
You'd hope that a gaggle of racist crackpots storming a mountain to push over an innocent sculpture would be the end of it, but no. The cheeky 2020 monolith continues to sprout globally. Alas, we've committed so let's get this out the way because I'm sure I have more useful work to be doing today, possibly to do with …
COMMENTS
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 13:23 GMT heyrick
maybe, just maybe, this story would have legs.
You say that in 2020?
Frankly, all little green men crawling out of the megalith would do is ignite a long and bitter argument as to whether or not we were "right" to depict aliens as humanoid shape.
The aliens themselves would be uninteresting...after this year...
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 15:26 GMT Danny 2
Re: IoW "art" claimed...
The mirrored perspex is interesting. My dad's been falling down a lot recently, and is rightly worried about going through the mirrored wardrobe doors in his bedroom. My mum was advised to cover the glass in reflective foil but mirrored perspex is obviously a lot safer, plus it doesn't seem that expensive. Maybe good for households with young children too.
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 21:17 GMT Doctor Syntax
Re: IoW "art" claimed...
I think whoever suggested the foil was thinking that it would hold the glass together if he bumped into it rather like a laminated windscreen. Before switching to a mirrored plastic I'd take a hammer to a sample to make sure it doesn't shatter too easily. In fact, take professional advice - I'm sure the safety elves must have looked at this.
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 22:51 GMT jake
Re: IoW "art" claimed...
Foil will not hold shards of glass. Fageddaboudit.
Here in the Western United States, you can get a piece of mirrored Acrylic from Tap Plastics that'll do the job for (probably) under $200. That's with your choice of thickness, rounded corners, pre-drilled holes, finished edges (if required), and cut to your exact measurements. It won't shatter if a human stumbles into it if it is properly backed (most mirrors on wardrobes have solid backing).
They ship overseas.
Measure three times before placing your order. Maybe four. And have someone else also make the measurements, and then compare. Don't ask how I know this.
Not affiliated in any way, just a happy customer, yadda yadda yadda.
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Wednesday 9th December 2020 12:09 GMT Danny 2
Re: IoW "art" claimed...
Thanks Jake & Dr Syntax,
There are decent local manufacturers here. I think Perspex is used the same way as other brand names such as 'doing the hoovering' even if it's a Dyson, or 'speaking over the tannoy' even if it's another public announcement brand.
I knew foil wasn't safe on glass. If you ever have to break a window quietly then place foil over the outside and then wood cut to fit the glass, then hit the wood. It's a burglar's trick I used as a peace protester but the wood was needed to avoid shards, and that wouldn't work as a mirror.
I don't have children so this is the first time I've had to 'child proof' a home. Unlike me and my mum my dad refuses to use a sippy-cup, yet he dropped three cups of tea yesterday, so I bought him a manly thermos mug from renowned toolmaker Stanley. I paid extra for the name as I think he'll respect it enough to use it. I bought him a wheeled zimmer frame six months ago and he was so insulted he made my mum return it, hence his falling now. I've been putting up new handrails everywhere, got rid of the bath and put in a wet-room, and bought Alexa dots that he is sometimes able to use. I wanted to get him a smart watch in case he wandered off, but none of them were good looking enough for him and he won't get far now anyway.
Just before Harry Dean Stanton died aged 91 he made the movie 'Lucky'. What do you do when life leaves you nothing? You smile. But life is less important than memory.
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Wednesday 9th December 2020 20:43 GMT mad_dr
Re: IoW "art" claimed...
Here's to your dad enjoying living as independently as possible for as long as possible. And one for you for taking care of this stuff. My old man is likely to be just as stubborn and reluctant as yours but I'm sure that, with a little time and adjustment, they'll both figure out a way to get by (and accept a little help along the way).
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Tuesday 15th December 2020 13:44 GMT hoola
Re: IoW "art" claimed...
There are various mirrored plastics that are specifically for use in gyms & dance studios. There appears to be two distinct types:
Some sort of acrylic material that is silvered and is cheaper than glass but crucially is not considered "safe" when it breaks. It's main benefits appear to be price and weight.
A more funky material that is safe when it breaks (or maybe it does not break but just bends) that is okay for these use cases.
The trouble is the latter is vastly more expensive than the shiny acrylic and in many cases more expensive that a traditional mirror. I believe that the shiny acrylic can be just as dangerous as glass if it shatters.
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 13:54 GMT Chris G
Reaction
Having been involved in an art project for a client a few years back, I discovered that in the contemporary art world, if your work provokes a reaction, it qualifies as art.
Whether the viewer or observer reacts in a good, bad or neutral manner, it is still art.
Accordingly, a fresh pile of poo on a podium each day would qualify, fortunately these attempts at monotonous monolithic art are slightly less objectionable. Re the copycats, Picasso always maintained that " Good artists copy, but great artists steal."
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 17:37 GMT Danny 2
Re: Reaction
When I was homeless I got quite good at drawing and painting, I thought so at least but wasn't sure as I hadn't been trained and people are overly polite. I showed some of my stuff to a successful artist to appraise and he just laughed and said, "Oh, I haven't done any of that for decades, I hire people to do that for me." Given he didn't offer me a job I took that as my answer.
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 18:45 GMT jake
Re: Reaction
"Whether the viewer or observer reacts in a good, bad or neutral manner, it is still art."
I just put down my coffee cup. The entire planet simultaneously reacted in a neutral manor ... I must be a great artist!!!!
Alternatively, are you trying to suggest Trump was a Republican attempt at art?
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 20:57 GMT Chris G
Re: Reaction
"Art is not a handicraft, it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced. —Tolstoy"
I would go along with that sentiment.
The contemporary exhibitions I have been to have a fair percentage of art that fits that quote but a lot of the 'art' seems to be the 'artist' testing the extent of taking the piss and getting away with it.
Or there are some very troubled artists exhibiting.
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 18:10 GMT jake
Re: 650 Words
Arguably the Beatles had a massive affect on pop music, but not so much on art in general.
Van Vliet, on the other hand, positively oozed Art from every pore.
(Disclaimer: I first saw Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band play at Pinkpop in 1974. It was Art. The Beatles gig at Candlestick in '67 was a gawd-awful commercial scream-fest, and very definitely was not Art.)
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 19:40 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: 650 Words
The Beatles live didn't have much relationship with the music of The Beatles (especially by 67). The live shows were noted for the hysterically screaming fans. Cool pop culture moments, sure, but not great musicly. They also had already started to get more experimental in the studio by that point.
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 14:56 GMT Teiwaz
Re: Three weeks of madness left
I wonder what the final count of monoliths will be at the end of 2020? Double digits?
I was kind of hoping monoliths would stick around 'til 2024 and stand for President.
It'll be a heck of a lot easier to un-install from the Whitehouse in 2028 or 2032 than the recent incumbent.
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 14:05 GMT Flocke Kroes
Tame little steel monoliths
If you have a properly over sized ego you should make your status symbol wide as a house, 24 storeys tall, bolt on three giant flame throwers to it and put it on display in the sky, higher than Everest.
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 15:26 GMT Anonymous Coward
BRITISH!!!
"However, the Isle of Wight obelisk is of far higher quality than its American counterparts, boasting a "really reflective" surface, according to its discoverer, 29-year-old Tom Dunford"
RULEZ BRITANNIA! etc...
What Tom Dunford actually means, is the one he laid eyes on in real life looks more impressive than the one he saw a picture of on a 5" phone screen...
Like people thinking their opinion on MasterChef/BakeOff eliminations is more valid than the people who actually got to eat the dish.
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 17:41 GMT jake
Matty Mo is waffling ...
... notice how he never comes out and says "Yes, we put that bit of Art there in Utah! Here's proof! We are proud of it, and the Feds can't prosecute because Free Speech! Besides, some other twat cleaned up our mess for us! Neener!"
Also note his backlog of "art" ... not a single piece is anything more than a way to make a quick buck from the rubes. There is no way that this "artist" has the attention-span necessary to wait for five years before cashing in.
Conclusion: He didn't put the original there, but is planing on making a quick buck off it anyway.
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 20:26 GMT Celeste Reinard
A breath of fresh air
It is definitively a change from all those black strips of asphalt all over the planet that have no better use than being run over with cars. Or cylindrical holes being bored through even more boring mountains one finds all over the planet, called 'tunnels', that bored people with little imagination use to drive through with a car, while listening to the beatles - as if they have nothing better to do. ... I don't think however it will be the marketing for the (rather boring) zen gardens line from Four Seasons Total Landscaping - unless they are fed up with people trying to attract gnomes with their stuff (when they failed to scare customers away with idiot lawyers from hell being more fun than anticipated). As a precursor for the Second Coming with transdimensional eggs... it surely beats a wooden cross with a (badly dressed) guy nailed to it (it scares the kids). It should be forbidden and persecuted to the full extent of the law when it ends up being an architect (Remco Koolhaas) going Banksy. Thát would be terrible indeed. (And boring.)
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 20:31 GMT martinusher
Its baaack.....
The local council thought it was such a good idea that they cooperated with erecting another one. This one's got a load of concrete inside it which might make pushing it over a bit more diffciult.
I was a bit disappointed to read that the structures included rivets. Anything extra-terrestial would probably use somewhat more advanced manufacturing techniques -- rivets are so steampunk (and I bet they were pop rivets -- low rent rivets). Since the structures don't actually do anything I find them a bit pointless.
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Tuesday 8th December 2020 22:14 GMT jake
Re: Its baaack.....
The rivets are an inexpensive way to stop the weather (or idiots without a drill) from easily wrecking them, as can be seen in the Utah version standing unscathed for a number of years in what is likely a flash-flood water course. Somehow I doubt the glued-onto-wood alternative will make it a full year, much less a storm-driven tide, unscathed.
Pop-rivets come in a variety of materials, including several types of Stainless Steel, which will cut down on galvanic corrosion. Makes for an inexpensive, long lasting, strong construction material. My grain bins come to mind, several decades old now (I bought 'em used) and no sign of aging.
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Wednesday 9th December 2020 12:23 GMT Danny 2
Re: Its baaack.....
My mum's father's father was a riveter on the Forth Bridge - one of the few who survived the job.
The bridge is still there and working, and painting it became an idiom for any never ending job. They'd paint it from end to end and then have to start again. Although lately with better paint technology it only has to be painted every decade, saving the bridge but ruining the idiom.
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Wednesday 9th December 2020 12:17 GMT Danny 2
Re: Basildon
Actually all the 1960s Scottish new towns came with loads of weird riveted steel 'sculptures'. I think you'll find the worship happens in Shepperton, not Basildon.
In The Unlimited Dream Company, a man named Blake crashes a stolen aircraft into the River Thames outside the London suburb of Shepperton. Whether he survives the crash, to become a sort of supernatural messiah for the small town, or if he actually drowns, and dying, imagines the whole thing, is never truly revealed.
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Wednesday 9th December 2020 12:47 GMT Fr. Ted Crilly
Naa, naa you need one of these
'This 50 story statue will be able to deflect alpha, gamma, and beta radiation. The day is coming, and coming soon, when the Artificial Suns will rain down to punish the degenerates of this city. But you can save yourself. The Pastor Richards Salvation Statue will be a completely self-sufficient community. We have canned food rations, private living quarters, and enough supplies to survive happily the predicted 40,000 years of nuclear winter. In phase 2, and with funding from NASA, we will equip this massive statue with rockets. So when the poopy hits the proverbial fan, we will load up the statue with all of the people who saved themselves through generous donations, blast into space, and colonize Saturn with a race of morally correct, affluent people ruled by me.'
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Wednesday 9th December 2020 13:55 GMT Cuddles
2001
"a passing resemblance to the alien structure from iconic sci-fi flick 2001: A Space Odyssey"
Different size, different shape, different colour, different material, different physical properties, different location. As far as I can tell, the supposed resemblance to the monolith in 2001 comes entirely down to the fact that both are somewhat rectangular. A box of Weetabix bears as much resemblance to an alien monolith as these silly "art" projects.
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Wednesday 9th December 2020 15:04 GMT Dave 32
Obelisks
Well, heck, we have a bunch of those rectangular obelisks all through rural Kentucky, although most of them are horizontal, rather than vertical. They're mostly painted white, although you can still find some painted avocado green and harvest gold. All of them have a door on one side, but I'd recommend strongly against opening one. If you do, you're sure to be greeted with the smell of moldy cheese or rotting meat.
Dave