Retrospectacle: A Neuroscience Blog

French art is downright weird sometimes, never illustrated better than through SpermCube. From what I can gather, its a “public art project” that everyone is supposed to “contribute” to. Oh man, I can’t even keep a straight face typing this.

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More pictures under the fold (may not be work safe)……

Now there are two options on how to support SpermCube. Weigh these options carefully!

1. Donate your own gametes to the cubical masterpiece.

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2. If that makes you queasy, fear not. You can still support this ‘joy forever’ through a monetary contribution. Wouldn’t you like to become a SpermCube shareholder? Of course!

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Please note that SpermCube is estimated to be worth 100,000 euros. Please also note that this is perhaps the grossest thing ever.

Comments

#1 coturnix
December 10, 2006

“If the minimal normal count is 20 million spermatozoids per 1 ml of liquid, what will be the total number of sperm cells in the cube once it is full.”

Sounds like a question on a math test in school…
#2 coturnix
December 10, 2006

Answer: 20 000 000 000 000
#3 Roy
December 10, 2006

*gag*

Tell me I’m misunderstanding. Tell me that doesn’t show that you *mail* your sperm in.

I’m no expert, but I have to imagine that sperm… I don’t know… goes bad somehow. It doesn’t seem like it’s the sort of thing that would mail well.
That’s the kind of art I want to see- a one ton frozen cube of rancid sperm.
Gross, gross, gross.
#4 Scott Simmons
December 10, 2006

More fun math: with typical ‘output’ of 3 to 5 cubic centimeters per ‘event’, they’ll need about 250,000 vials to fill that thing. They’re going to need a lot of volunteers, or else they’ll be kept pretty busy for quite a while …
#5 coturnix
December 10, 2006

Of course it will go bad. It has to be placed on dry ice and mailed overnight. With a Biohazard warning label on it.
#6 Todd O.
December 10, 2006

Am I completely spacing basic metric system here? Isn’t a 1 meter cube only 100 litres? Isn’t 1cm3 a ml? That is, isn’t one decimeter3 one litre? I realize I’m only a sociologist, but something is awry here…

I’ll brace for guffaws at how stupid I am…
#7 Scott Simmons
December 10, 2006

Yes, 1 cubic centimeter is 1 ml. And there are 100 cm in a meter, so there are 100*100*100 = 1,000,000 cm3 in a m3. And 1,000,000 cm3 = 1,000,000 ml = 1,000 liters.
#8 Brian
December 10, 2006

Todd,

Think of it like this:

Pretend you’re building a cubic meter out of cm^3 building blocks.
How many cm^3 are there across one side of a m^3? Answer: 100
Now multiply that by 100, since the base has four sides. With me so far? So that means that already there are 10,000 cm^3 in the base alone, or 10,000 mL, which is 10 L.
Finally, multiply that by the height, which is, again, 100, and you find that it takes 1,000,000 cm^3 to make one m^3. Divide that by 1,000 (because there are 1,000 mL per L), and you arrive at 1,000 L.
#9 Brian
December 10, 2006

Of course, Scott’s way works, too.
#10 Captain C
December 10, 2006

Does this have anything to do with the Time Cube?
#11 Brandon
December 10, 2006

I always wondered what was in those Energon Cubes and where all the humans on Cybertron were…
#12 dustbubble
December 10, 2006

Er, sorry, ‘merkins, but i thought you knew how camembert is made?
#13 jimbo
December 10, 2006

“From what I can gather, its a “public art project” that everyone is supposed to “contribute” to.”

Well, not everyone. Aside from a few talented ladies in bongo films they’ve excluded about half the population.
#14 Frank the SciencePunk
December 11, 2006

I think this is how IVF would operate under communism.
#15 Robster
December 11, 2006

I had a comment, but thought better of it.
#16 Stanton
December 11, 2006

It seems that I have had the misfortune to find an “art” project grosser than this dead cow that was cut into sections, and then placed into a series of tanks filled with blue formaldehyde.
#17 Brian (a different one)
December 12, 2006

At the Guggenheim a few years back one of the exhibits I saw was “can of artists’ feces”. This artist was also French. If we can agree that 1,000L of human sperm in a clear container is more disgusting than (?) oz of canned shit, then what we really need to worry about is the trend this is setting, because the next artist is going to have to outdo the previous two. In other words, what is going to come next??

And yes, that is a rhetorical question, I don’t particularly want an answer…
#18 Mister Nice Guy
December 13, 2006

I dunno, I kind of like it. It’s good to have a positive attitude towards scrote squeezin’s.
#19 d
March 13, 2009

this project is brilliant,conceptual art at it’s best