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Video: Mobile Sperm Bar Seeks Donors For Delicious Mocktails
By
John Del Signore
Published Sep 2, 2011
Modified Sep 2, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published Sep 2, 2011
Modified Sep 2, 2011
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Later this month, a mobile "SpermBar" will hit the streets of NYC, setting up on Museum Mile to offer delicious non-alcoholic cocktails made by Cristian Molina, who does the exceptional cocktails at Rouge Tomate. The SpermBar is an edible interactive art installation by French artist Prune Nourry, who says her work is "inspired by the commoditization of human reproduction and the ‘customer satisfaction’ culture." It sounds like an amusing project, but lovers of semen-infused beverages beware: the mocktails won't actually contain sperm! Oh, these "conceptual" artists and their confusing "happenings"...
The press release we received about SpermBar is bewildering, but after reading through it twice, here's what we've gathered: Nourry is seeking sperm "donors" to register on her SpermBar website—these dudes won't actually donate sperm, but the idea is that they'll anonymously provide some personal information via an online form. Then Molina, the mixologist, will "link each individual trait to a particular ingredient. Each symbolic sperm donation thus produces a unique juice that reflects the donor’s attributes (e.g. brown eyes: hazelnut, etc.)." Does that make sense? And by that of course we mean: Thirsty?
The Spermbar project from Prune Nourry on Vimeo.
The SpermBar will be open for business on Saturday September 17th (from 2-6 p.m. at 78th Street and Fifth Avenue) as part of Crossing the Line 2011, the French Institute Alliance Française's annual transdisciplinary festival of contemporary arts. And just because sperm street food is an attention-grabbing concept, that doesn't mean Nourry isn't posing some interesting questions, you guys. She writes:
Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection now runs parallel to this new form of genetic selection according to eugenic principals, where only embryos selected for their apparently positive qualities are considered viable. Does this artificial evolutionary process mean sperm banks are ‘against nature’? Or, in light of recent developments, must our society redefine ‘nature’ itself as somewhere between traditional procreation and assisted procreation?
Open wide for the New Nature! And since the SpermBar serves non-alcoholic cocktails, you can swallow and drive.
Tagged
Crossing the Line
French people
ha he said sperm
Prune Nourry
sperm
spermbar
John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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