Mckenzie Wark: The Beach Beneath the Street

A giant inflatable dog turd broke loose from its moorings outside the Paul Klee Center in Switzerland and brought down power lines before coming to a halt in the grounds of a children’s home. The PaulMcCarthy sculpture, the size of a house, reached a maximum altitudeof 200 meters. Other civilizations had their chosen forms: from theObelisk of Luxor to Michelangelo’s David. The futurist poet Marinettifound his crashed motor car more beautiful than the Winged Victory of Samothrace, but he might have balked at flying dog shit. In the twenty-first century, the insomnia of reason does not breed monsters, but pets.No wonder there are no longer any gods, when what is expected of them is that they descend from Mount Olympus with plastic baggiesand clean up.