Torture by Art.

January 28, 2003 12:54 PM

Torture by Art. 'Bauhaus artists such as Kandinsky, Klee and Itten, as well as the surrealist film-maker Luis Bunuel and his friend Salvador Dali, were said to be the inspiration behind a series of secret cells and torture centres built in Barcelona and elsewhere '. Maybe there is a future for those Turner Prize winners after all.
posted by rolo (26 comments total)

Damnit, you beat me to this post by all of about 30 seconds!

I don't know what it is that disturbs me the most about this story? Maybe the art as torture part? Anyway I almost thought it was and April Fool's joke until I realized its January!

Some people think modern art is torture anyway!
posted by Pollomacho at 1:00 PM on January 28, 2003

"The only option left to prisoners was staring at the walls, which were curved and covered with mind-altering patterns of cubes, squares, straight lines and spirals which utilised tricks of colour, perspective and scale to cause mental confusion and distress. "

I can relate. I made the mistake of seeing Freddy Got Fingered.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:13 PM on January 28, 2003

I remember seeing something on 60 Minutes(?) years ago about police holding cells painted a certain "calming" shade of pink.
posted by sharksandwich at 1:15 PM on January 28, 2003

Hey - Hitler was an artist, and he surrounded himself with killers and thugs who had extremely refined artistic sensibilities and even some claim to brilliance. Oh, and then there's "Triumph of the will" by Leni Riefenstahl.

Who says that art -simply by virtue of being dubbed "art" in the first place - wears a halo?
posted by troutfishing at 1:17 PM on January 28, 2003

Luis Bunuel and his friend Salvador Dali... who made Un Chein Andalou, which is considered to be the first art film.

And I only bring this us so that I can casually mention the song Debaser, by the Pixies, was written about a Umass Amherst professor who was obsessed with the film.

One of the greatest songs ever written about slicing up eyeballs.
posted by SweetJesus at 1:17 PM on January 28, 2003

sharksandwich - I was going to ask about that pink shade, but I tried to do some Googling first, with not much luck. The story I heard is that there is a particular shade of pink known as "Baker's Pink", which was used to paint the walls of insane asylums for a long time, because it was thought to calm the inmates. It was only after they discovered that the color actually made them more insane that they stopped using it.

Can anyone back this up? I've had no luck with Snopes or Google.
posted by starvingartist at 1:19 PM on January 28, 2003

Well, pink would make me insane. And possibly violent. Bleh!

As to the link, which is a great one, I want pictures dammit! Pictures, I say!
posted by dejah420 at 1:22 PM on January 28, 2003

The only option left to prisoners was staring at the walls, which were curved and covered with mind-altering patterns of cubes, squares, straight lines and spirals which utilised tricks of colour, perspective and scale to cause mental confusion and distress.

It's an odd thing that different folks can be affected by what they see. I can be relaxed looking at a typhoon. But this would drive me nuts 27/7. This reminds me of color and its relation to moods.
posted by thomcatspike at 1:24 PM on January 28, 2003

starvingartist, I heard and saw the same thing about the shade of pink painted to calm down folks locked up. I think Real People had a segment on this as you wouldn't think to paint the inside of a cell pink. But I too had no luck yet did add the link above.
posted by thomcatspike at 1:30 PM on January 28, 2003

NPR did a bit about it yesterday: http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=941560 - apparently backed up by both a book about the torture cells and interviews with former prisoners.
posted by kokogiak at 1:33 PM on January 28, 2003

SweetJesus - Oh, THAT guy! "written about a Umass Amherst professor who was obsessed with the film..."

Was he the one who always wore black and went through at least a pack and a half of "Ultra light" cigarettes per class? He sure did like that eyeball scene!
posted by troutfishing at 1:42 PM on January 28, 2003

starvingartist: The color you're looking for is Baker-Miller pink.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:46 PM on January 28, 2003

This is a triiip...

...covered with mind-altering patterns of cubes, squares, straight lines and spirals which utilised tricks of colour, perspective and scale to cause mental confusion and distress.

What, no melting clocks?

Lighting effects gave the impression that the dizzying patterns on the wall were moving.

Escher could have added a trick or two.

Mr Milicua has claimed that Laurencic preferred to use the colour green because, according to his theory of the psychological effects of various colours, it produced melancholy and sadness in prisoners.

I can confirm this. I once lived in a red-carpeted room with pink walls. I never had so much energy in my life. Then I moved into a dark blue-carpeted room with light blue walls, and I was depressed out of my skull. Later, dark green carpet with dark green beneath the wainescote was too much, but not so bad once I changed the lower walls from green to tan.

Hey - Hitler was an artist...

Hitler Painted Roses reveals a wealth when Googled (including Ellison's short story of the same name.)

It was only after they discovered that the color actually made them more insane that they stopped using it.

Not sure about pink, but yellow is usually thought of as cheerful and, I believe, actually tends to provoke anxiety and even anger. Someone here will hop in and clarify soon, I'm sure...
posted by Shane at 1:48 PM on January 28, 2003

27/7?

Well, I guess we know who the Martian here is... Texas, my ass.

Anyway, human beings--we do torture right. Applied cruelty--it's probably the very first art form and predates even cave painting.
posted by y2karl at 1:51 PM on January 28, 2003

The color you're looking for is Baker-Miller pink.

That page really left me craving some bubble gum.

Another color-mood factoid: blue depresses the appetite. There are few naturally blue foods (besides berries), and the color often indicates spoilage. People trying to lose weight have been advised to eat off blue plates and put a blue light in their fridge.
posted by gottabefunky at 2:04 PM on January 28, 2003

Who says that art -simply by virtue of being dubbed "art" in the first place - wears a halo?

Marcelle Duchamp that's who!
posted by Pollomacho at 2:05 PM on January 28, 2003

I think Duchamp's point was exactly the opposite, actually.
posted by mr_roboto at 2:57 PM on January 28, 2003

People trying to lose weight have been advised to eat off blue plates and put a blue light in their fridge.
Metafilter: its so blue you will lose your appetite.
posted by ac at 3:23 PM on January 28, 2003

27/7?

Well, I guess we know who the Martian here is... Texas, my ass.

Huh?, WTF y2karl? ...Texas, my ass...27/7 it should have read as 24/7 as in 24 hours, 7 days a week.

What does martian, your ass & Texas have to with me? I'm guessing here; I'm here in Dallass, Texas 24/7. And as being an alien to the state of Texas, well you're right, I'm not a native Texan. Oh I have been compared to a werewolf from the Meta-meetup in August.
posted by thomcatspike at 3:33 PM on January 28, 2003

It's not torture, but it made my sides hurt:
Ed Koch reviews The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeousie
posted by eddydamascene at 4:15 PM on January 28, 2003

Given that the Martian year is 686.9796 Earth days long and the Martian day 1.0274913 Earth days long, the Martian year thus has 668.599 Martian days.

OK, it's more like 24.7/7. My bad.

Explaining witty remarks is so demeaning to explainer and explainee alike
as it implies Well, duh... half-wittery on someone's part..
posted by y2karl at 4:52 PM on January 28, 2003

< technical>

sweetjesus - just to be nitpicky, un chien andalou is hardly considered the first art film. the russian formalists (dziga vertov, for one) were doing "artistic" film a decade before bunuel started his thing with the surrealists. the first surrealist film, definitely, but film had been around and was thriving as an art since the 1890's.

< / technical>
posted by oog at 5:42 PM on January 28, 2003

Laurencic told the military court that he had been commissioned to build the cells by an anarchist leader who had heard of similar ones used elsewhere in the republican zone during the civil war, possibly in Valencia.

What's an "anarchist leader"?
posted by zerofoks at 9:27 PM on January 28, 2003

Pollomacho

Ever heard of the theories by Rhonda Shearer? She proved that none of Duchamp's "readymades" was what it claimed to be - that everyone had been previously arranged or composed by Duchamp himself - the pissoir for instance was claimed to have been bought in a normal store for pissors in that time. After an exhausting research, Shearer found out that no kind of pissor was sold at that time by any manufacturer and that no piece from then looked even remotely similiar like those in the catalogs.

I think when talking about diminishing the borders of art and reality, Warhol and Liechtenstein are better examples that Duchamp. Duchamp seems more like someone who was only interested in reality so much as to be able to trick and overcome it.
posted by zerofoks at 9:37 PM on January 28, 2003

Luis Bunuel and his friend Salvador Dali... who made Un Chein Andalou, which is considered to be the first art film.

And I only bring this us so that I can casually mention the song Debaser, by the Pixies, was written about a Umass Amherst professor who was obsessed with the film.

One of the greatest songs ever written about slicing up eyeballs

And you know what? The best new rock'n roll club in my town is called Debaser, because that's the favourite song of one of the guys running the club. I've never heard the song, but now I'll be thinking about Un Chien Andalou (which I have seen) next time I go there. The things you learn on Metafilter!
posted by Termite at 4:32 AM on January 29, 2003

From a Sweet Briar College Art History online presentation entitled "What is Art...? What is an Artist...?"

In the early 20th century all traditional notions of the identity of the artist and of art were thrown into disarray by Marcel Duchamp and his Dada associates. In ironic mockery of the Renaissance tradition which had placed the artist in an exalted authoritative position, Duchamp, as an artist, declared that anything the artist produces is art. For the duration of the 20th century, this position has complicated and undermined how art is perceived but at the same time it has fostered a broader, more inclusive assessment of art.

I know what you're saying, Duchamp was quite a trickster as well as an innovative thinker, but his point in putting a real or created urinal in a gallery was to say, to quote Troutfishing here, "art -simply by virtue of being dubbed 'art' in the first place - wears a halo."

Perhaps Piero Manzoni's "Merde D'Artiste" would have been an even better example of this point though.
posted by Pollomacho at 6:52 AM on January 29, 2003