Public Toilet Made of One-Way Glass - Analysis
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The installation, entitled "Don't Miss a Sec," originally stood on a bustling construction site facing the Tate Britain Museum in London. Unveiled in December 2003 by conceptual artist Monica Bonvicini, it was immediately dubbed "Loo with a View" by the British press. From the outside looking in, it appears to be nothing more than a monolith made of mirrors; from the inside looking out, it's a 360-degree window on the world.
Theme of omnipresent surveillance
Besides posing an obvious challenge to the cultural norms separating "the private" from "the public," the work was intended to reflect (pun intended) something of the history of the site, where England's first state penitentiary, Millbank Prison, originally stood. It was here that British philosopher and penal reformer Jeremy Bentham hoped to erect his "Panopticon," a jail constructed in the shape of a wheel with an observation tower at its hub allowing for the omnipresent surveillance of prisoners who, in turn, could not see their God-like keepers. He was never able to secure funding for the project.
"In light of this history," writes art critic Jennifer Allen, "'Don't Miss a Sec' reflects the perpetual gaze of the surveillance camera, a high-tech gargoyle that has made so many buildings into tireless sentinels of public space. Where Foucault criticised the panopticon's surveillance system as a new way of disciplining the subject in the age of industrialisation, Bonvicini's system of reflective glass suggests that we are all too happy to watch and to be watched in our society of the spectacle."
In theory, perhaps. According to news accounts, most passersby have expressed reluctance to use the facility.
More toilet tales:
The Exploding Toilet
If you think you're having a bad day, read this...Return of the Exploding Toilet
A slew of variants of the classic urban legendIn Lieu of a Loo
Another apocryphal tale of toilet-related embarrassmentSpiders in the Toilet
Email prank claims that deadly 'blush spiders' from South America are migrating to the U.S. on airliners and lurk under toilet seats everywhere
Sources and further reading:
Art's Glass Toilet Tests Courage
BBC News, 3 December 2003A New Way to View London: From a Toilet
MSNBC News, 5 March 2004Art Basel 2004
ArtNet.com Magazine, 7 June 2004Interview with Monica Bonvicini
Neoaztlan.com
Last updated: 07/21/04
