From his very first creations, Wim Delvoye’s work has been characterized by challenging traditional conventions of taste; the opposition between high and low is played out, between contemporary art and popular culture, with the works becoming hybrids, with both plebeian and aristocratic characteristics: they are both craft and concept, decorative and functional. The term Delvoye himself uses is “glocal”: his works draw inspiration from local traditions (local), but are also universally recognizable (global). Thus, concrete mixers are adorned with ornaments from all sorts of art-historical currents and cultures, but they remain recognizable above all as concrete mixers.

A breakthrough in Delvoye’s work came with the tattooed pigs. As early as 1995, Delvoye was having tattoos drawn on the skin of dead pigs, which were then tanned. Delvoye’s choice of this extremely plebeian animal heightens not only the tension between high and low – between what the animal is (internally) and what it has become through human intervention: art (externally) – but also externalizes the field of tension between art and consumption. The pig/art work as an article of consumption also indicates an economic aspect: as the pig grows, the scope of the art work increases too, with Delvoye implicitly ridiculing the question of art as an object of speculation.

Cloaca

This proletarian, democratic aspect cannot be ignored in the development of Cloaca, the functional kinetic installation that Delvoye has been trying to develop since the mid 1990s. The purpose of this machine is to duplicate the human digestive system, without calling on human characteristics. The functions of the various steps of the digestive system are literally copied (mouthstomach-pancreas-intestines-anus) by means of separate recipients with their specific, unique chemical composition (enzymes). The work requires constant care, as if a living human being were present. Cloaca can thus be seen as a cyborg, a hybrid form between man and machine that symbolizes the essential, biological human condition: eating and being eaten.

Cloaca is like a laboratory, with its product line of stainless-steel elements, glass flasks with various stages of digested food – kept constantly at body temperature – peristaltic pumps, which transfer the concoction via silicone intestines, and internal electrical wiring that controls the software of the machine. In this laboratory, nature is simulated and life created: the machine acquires divine qualities, the feeding is a sacrifice, Cloaca the emanation of an altar.

Cloaca is pure materialism and consumerism and, as an art object, embodies capitalism in its purest form. Cloaca symbolizes contemporary corporate power; the logo becomes a contemporary escutcheon. On the other hand, Cloaca does not commit us to anything: the machine has no purposes, no sex, no opinion; Cloaca is a posthuman icon, a sculpture on which everyone can project his or her conviction – the medium is the message.

Cloaca – New and Improved / Cloaca – Turbo

The intersection between art and technology was investigated further by Wim Delvoye, who developed a new version of Cloaca, known as Cloaca – New and Improved (2001). This version fits in with industrial automation: not only does the laboratory appearance make room for more streamlined, clean production line, but the software is fully automated and a modem is installed so that the machine can be operated from a distance.

A third step in the development is Cloaca – Turbo (2003), conceived to bolster the production capacity substantially. Turbo no longer has different recipients representing one stage of the digestive tract, but rather the different stages together in one continuous flow of three industrial washing machines propelling the food forward. The further versions areCloaca Quattro and Cloaca No 5. In parallel to human evolution, Cloaca has now stood upright. While technically using gravity as a means to process the digestive tract, Cloaca has also touched base: the food is no longer sacrificed (using the ladder to mount to the divine) but is simply being fed from ground level, connecting industrialization with secularization and consumerism.

Cloaca Ltd.

As an industrial metaphor, Cloaca naturally has its economic implications. A limited number of 100 eliminations found to be of good quality from the first five exhibitions of the first two machines were preserved and dated, and contributed to Cloaca Ltd. as a payment in kind. These are irradiated with gamma rays (to destroy all bacteria), dried and vacuum packed. This vacuum pack is then packed in an airtight Plexiglas box under pressure (place, date and time of production and Delvoye’s signature). Until the end of March 2003, these editions were offered for sale on the internet at the Cloaca websitehttp://www.cloaca.be. By connecting the project with the capitalist system and setting up the machine as a real production line as a metaphor for the art market, Delvoye also investigated the artistic logic in which each artist must fashion his or her own world and method into a “personal”, “idiosyncratic” and original product. Cloaca Ltd. is therefore the logical consequence of the artistic process of becoming: from creation to speculation. (Gianni Degryse)