I don’t know if this qualifies as some endurance test or some stupid metal stunt, but according to Alternative Press, the members of the UK death metal band Unfathomable Ruination are going to perform inside a sealed, airtight container until they run out of oxygen…. And then what? They will pass out and die? Or I guess someone is going to open that door.
This is actually art, modern art and part of London’s Sculpture in the City art exhibit. This ‘die box’ is actually a piece by Portuguese artist João Onofre, as it is explained in the installment’s description:
‘This is the first time that João Onofre’s work, Box sized DIE featuring Unfathomable Ruination, 2007 – 2014 has come to London, having toured extensively through Europe at venues including Palais de Tokyo and MACBA. Influenced by Tony Smith’s pioneering minimalist sculpture Die (1962), the steel box serves as a mobile location for performance. In each location the sculpture travels to, Onofre invites a local Death Metal band to play, on this occasion Unfathomable Ruination. The box is soundproofed, determining and restricting the performance’s duration to the length of time in which the oxygen is expended. Outside the cube, viewers observe its strange vibrations, only viewing the band’s entrance and exit to the performance space.”
So I guess they are gonna be a living sculpture, and I wonder how many bands have done it before! Looking at the box it is gonna be difficult for them to fit inside while playing loud music… The band posted on their facebook page the following comment: ‘According to the medical professionals who read the Independent, we’re all going to die… Challenge Accepted.’ Sure, this is so metal, so death metal!
If you are interested, and in London this summer, performances will take place on July 3 at 6 and 7 PM, as well as from July 4 through August 1 at 6 PM, Wednesday through Friday. This is a video showing the making of the death box and featuring another band Holocausto Canibal, which accepted to go through the same experience at the beginning of this year. Judging by Unfathomable Ruination’s music (yeah totally death metal with an emphasis on the death part) these guys will exit this box deaf as a (metal) post.
