Guys, do you ever wish you could peek into the experience of a woman and try menstruation for a while? Girls, do you wish you could be on your period more often? No? That’s not a thing most people want? Well, art doesn’t really cater to the more practical side of things, so Japanese artist Sputniko! (punctuation included) designed this machine, now being featured in the Museum of Modern Art, that simulates the experience of menstruation.
On the reason he created the machine, Sputniko! notes:
Since the 1960s, advances in hormone-based contraception have, by suppressing ovulation, made monthly periods no longer biologically necessary.
Takashi builds the Menstruation Machine and wears it out on the town with a girlfriend, strutting around a shopping mall and occasionally doubling over in pain. Thus an internal, private process is transformed into a wearable display of identity
Using electrodes to induce abdominal cramps, and slowly releasing a red fluid, Sputniko! says that the machine “may be particularly desirable in a future in which menstruation in fact becomes obsolete.”
Really? Are people really going to miss that sensation? I guess even the future might have hipsters interested in menstruating ironically…
And yes, I know: It’s art. So color me missing-the-point.
To watch a video of Sputniko! out and about wearing the devise, go here.
(via Jezebel)
