Professor places goldfish in blenders as social experiment and asks visitors to turn them on
Brits do love a chippy - a nice piece of lightly battered cod with some crispy, yet fluffy, triple cooked chips.
However, the idea of a living, swimming gold fish blended into a smooth paste is perhaps one step too far.
Chilean artist Marco Evaristti, best known for his creation 'Helena & El Pascador', debuted the piece at the Trapholt Museum, Denmark, back in 2000.
The practicing architect presented visitors with 10 blenders, each filled with water and a single goldfish.
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Museum-goers were then provided with a choice:
1) Press the large 'ON' button and kill the fish
2) Don’t
Attempting to justify the madness, Evaristti said: "It was a protest against what is going on in the world, against this cynicism, this brutality that impregnates the world in which we live."
Although most (sane) people walked past the not-so-tempting button, at least two goldfish were blitzed into oblivion.
Expanding on Evaristti's logic behind the art piece, the Museum said: "The work is ultimately about a person’s journey in the world in which Evaristti believes there are three types of person: The Sadist, the Voyeur and the Moralist.
"If a person is a sadist he or she will press the button on the blender because he or she is able to do so.
"Is the person a voyeur, he/she excitedly observes whether others will press the button.
"Is the person a moralist he/she becomes infuriated by the fact that there is an option to blend fish.
"Moreover, the work does not have a single, unambiguous interpretation, but it is possible to seek out the many elements that point to the differences and similarity between the masculine and the feminine."
They added: "Masculine symbols such as Evaristti himself with military trousers (around his ankles) and a missile are overwritten by feminine lipstick and the kitchen (traditionally the woman’s domain) blenders that become murder weapons when living goldfish are placed in them.
"Goethe's poem, The Fisherman, lay in a cupboard and served on several levels as inspiration for the installation.
"From the fish in risk of being pulled out of the safe water, to the meeting with the fatally seductive mermaid – and the longing for love.
"Goethe’s poem, The Fisherman, lay in a cupboard and served on several levels as inspiration for installation.
"From the fish in risk of being pulled out of the safe water, to the meeting with the fatally seductive mermaid – and the longing for love."
Anish Vij