I pit this "artist" (warning: animal cruelty)

[amarinth]

@Terrifel

Except, if the reports are accurate, there was food right there in front of it, spelling out a message. Yes, the dog couldn’t reach it, but the point is that everybody else who looked at the dog could. Anybody who could read the message could feed the dog. What was the message? “You are what you read.” You’re reading this. Here’s the message. Here’s the food. Here’s the choice.

if “I am what I read,” then the most obvious thing the artist is saying is that “I am the dog food” which, to me, would have sounded like the artist spent too much time smoking the other part of his “art work.”

But assuming you’re right - it was offering me a “choice” to use the dog food making up the sign, do you normally rip art installations off the walls in art museums in your part of the world? The choice is to feed the dog whatever was holding that food to the wall and let it die of poisoning or let it starve?

[Terrifel]

@amarinth

if “I am what I read,” then the most obvious thing the artist is saying is that “I am the dog food” which, to me, would have sounded like the artist spent too much time smoking the other part of his “art work.”

I read the intent more like “I am participating in whatever I happen to read about,” which is to say, if you learn about an ongoing situation, you’re involved with it, not just a spectator. In this case the viewer IS the dog food, in that they have the capacity to feed the dog. If the viewer doesn’t act, the dog doesn’t get fed. So the viewer is as much a necessary part of the process as the food itself.

But assuming you’re right - it was offering me a “choice” to use the dog food making up the sign, do you normally rip art installations off the walls in art museums in your part of the world? The choice is to feed the dog whatever was holding that food to the wall and let it die of poisoning or let it starve?

Ah, well I hadn’t noticed the part of the article that stated the dog food was actually attached to the wall-- I thought it just said the message was spelled out in dog food, which to me suggested that it was just placed there nearby. So perhaps that’s not the proper interpretation after all. But then I don’t usually encounter starving dogs in art museums in my part of the world. In fact I don’t usually encounter starving dogs on the street in my part of the world, so it’s not a situation I’m confronted with on a daily basis.

[Wile_E]

@Cervaise

…

Not only can I not condemn the artist, I applaud him.

Darn, another Doper crush out the window.

[Shodan]

I don’t have to feed starving dogs. My failure to do so makes an important artistic statement.

Regards,
Shodan

[VarlosZ]

@Larry Borgia

There are many starving cats in my neighborhood. That fact doesn’t mean I can stop feeding my cats. If I deliberately let them starve to death to prove some asinine “point,” I’m being a sadistic creep, just like the artist.

Probably, because in that scenario, you’d be increasing the total amount of suffering by starving your presumably healthy and happy cats. Putting inevitable death on display, where it might possibly do some good in the long run, is different. Of course, I kinda doubt that this guy was positive about the dog’s fate, but if what he says is absolutely true, then he’s not necessarily doing anything wrong.

@Contrapuntal

Once the animal was in his charge, it was his moral responsibility.

Like the man said, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. If the artist sincerely believed that he could alleviate the suffering of thousands of other animals by sacrificing this one (presumably doomed) dog, then he was not only permitted to do so, he had a positive moral obligation to carry out his plan.

[Larry_Borgia]

@VarlosZ

Like the man said, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. If the artist sincerely believed that he could alleviate the suffering of thousands of other animals by sacrificing this one (presumably doomed) dog, then he was not only permitted to do so, he had a positive moral obligation to carry out his plan.

He really believed that? Then he’s an idiot as well as a creep.