San Francisco-based performance artist Qinmin Liu wants your Apple Watches for her art project. Oh, but don’t go sending her the regular “cheap” one, she wants the $10,000 gold one, and she needs 50 of them. This is one majorly expensive art project.
Liu’s project/possible-get-rich-quick-scheme is part of an art project that she says is to point out the evil that materialism breeds in our society. “If you own or plan to purchase a 18k gold apple watch, you are rich and evil,” Liu writes in a Google Form. “We are offering you one way out: donate to us.”
Are you listening, rich tech dude, it’s not too late to save yourself, just procure an $10k 18-karat gold Apple watch — or the $17,000 38-mm model with red buckle if you’e feeling extra generous — and mail it off to Liu by June 1. Consider it a charity donation to San Francisco’s struggling art community.
“As an artist, I think Apple is a phenomenon, and everyone is influenced by it. When I see people lineup and waiting for 8 hours to get a newest Apple product, I consider it a performance from my artistic perspective,” Liu said in an email. “To be honest, I don’t really care about Apple’s product, but I do care [about] the motivations & desires & curiosity that influence human beings’ actions.”
Many people will undoubtedly be lining up to sit in line for 8(?), 12(?), 24(?) hours to buy one of the watches that can do half the things your iPhone already does. Though, the truly rich and evil will pay somebody else to sit in line for them.
Liu already has a fairly large number of donors from the U.S., China, India, and South Korea. There’s one donor though that Liu REALLY wants to contribute to her project. “I hope that Bill Gates can donate to us,” she added. “He probably hates Apple Watch more than anyone, since he can’t make one. But he is very supportive to art. He can certainly fulfill all our needs of 50 Apple Watches.”
The artist who appeared on the cover of SF Weekly’s Winter Arts issue in January previously protested social media by walking around San Francisco covered in sticky rice. (But if you want to use social media to promote THIS project, Liu would probably be totally cool with that.) How Liu plans to use the watches hasn’t yet been revealed, but it will be something involving other human bodies. If you have $10k just lying around and would like to contribute you can do so here.