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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Two: Travel Incongruities > Bizarre bottle openers, Brussels, Belgium, 2005
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07-JUN-2005

Bizarre bottle openers, Brussels, Belgium, 2005

Every souvenir shop in Brussels sells hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of crudely manufactured Asian souvenirs of the city’s famous Mannekin Pis fountain. In this shop window, dozens of them, looking almost nothing like the original, are lined up in precise ranks. The sight of so many multi-colored miniature statues of urinating children lined up in rows was bizarre enough in itself. But these were not only miniature replicas – they apparently also function as bottle openers. The apparatus sprouting from their heads makes them even more incongruous. My tight vantage point intensifies the rhythmic repetition of both the ludicrous figures and the bottle openers, creating a sense of incongruity that implies regimentation and relentless commercialism. They are intended, of course, as amusement, but when seen en masse, the incongruous effect is surreal and profoundly unsettling, a comment on the nature of worldwide tourism and the commercialism that feeds on it.

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Phil Douglis22-Jul-2006 05:24
Wonderful, Emi -- a brave new world of robots peeing in unison! I love your interpretation!
Guest 22-Jul-2006 03:17
From the faces and the function of these little things, telling me that this is a robot world - our new generation are trained in the same way without any personal charactor, plus they are being used in this materialistic world.

Emi
monique jansen02-Jul-2005 13:38
you did a great job here as well.
http://www.pbase.com/trevvelbug/brussels
Phil Douglis02-Jul-2005 06:26
Thanks, Kal -- what a wonderful observation! Windup handles, marching us all off in lock step. Glad I have out performed your dreams of my Mannekin Pis image. (Be sure to see this one as well:http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/45581650 )
Kal Khogali02-Jul-2005 06:05
Oh Phil! I have to comment now, and not wait till this evening. I had a dream about you photographing the Mannekin Pis (I told Jen about it). This is not what I dreamed, it is beyond my imagination! What a wondrful symbol. The road to the Mannekin Pis is lined with Shops selling this stuff. In one image, you tell us this is Brussels, but you tell us that the city's art is being exploited. There are cork screws, and endless other implements, but here you chose the bottle openers which look like wind up handles, as though if we wound each of these little statues, they would truly march as a regiment! I absolutely love it.
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