Erika Eiffel - Married to the Eiffel Tower

Object sexuality (OS) or objectophilia is a romantic and often sexual desire towards developing relationships with inanimate objects or structures. Individuals that express this preference may feel strong feelings of attraction, love and commitment to structures of their fixation.

For many objectophiles sexual or close emotional relationships with humans are incomprehensible. In Feb 2008, Erika Eiffel, an object-sexual living near San Francisco, California founded OS Internationale, an educational website and international online community for those identifying or researching the condition to love objects. The website generated a flood of international media interest. She has since appeared on ABC Today and the Tyra Banks show.

Objectum Sexuality

‘We love objects on a very significant level and many of us in an intimate way.  This feeling is innate.  Objectùm-sexual love comes for most in a similar awakening as other sexualities at the start of puberty.’ – Erika Eiffel

Since marrying the Eiffel Tower, Erika has moved on to have a long standing relationship with the Berlin Wall, who is also married to Mrs. Eklöf Berliner-Mauer, the first OS person to go public.

We found a video below where an objectophile talks about her latest partner…a German fair ground ride called “1001 NACHT”

For  more information about OS visit http://www.objectum-sexuality.org/

Designed by Richard Rogers , the Dome was built to house an exhibition celebrating the dawn of the third millenium.  The project attracted controversy regarding its cost, the nature of the exhibits it contained during the year it was open, as well as the challenge of finding a use for the largest single-roofed structure in the world after its closure.

I go past this edifice every day on the way to work and never stop marvelling at its scale and boldness which was once a sign of optimism, then embarassment, and now everyday leisure needs.

Once inside there is a Vue cinema, said music arenas, and a plethora of eateries, from Pizza Express to Nandos, tarted up with some palm trees and faux-Art Deco facades.

The original structure still looms above as you follow the circular routes around the building- the distinctive yellow pylons holding up the tent-like roof are visible, sometimes even in the restaurants.

It is strange to see such an ambitious project turned into a glorified mall.

Every American baby boomer can tell you where he or she was when President John Kennedy was shot. My father was in Mrs. Horthschild’s class when she announced the somber news and to this day says his heart races when thinking of the memory (note: this is not actually true; my father and I have never had this conversation).

Likewise, I remember where I was that fateful day when Comrade Dear Leader Abundant Glory  Kim Jong Il was (likely) poisoned or bludgeoned to death by Capitalist American Oppressors: Dakar, Senegal, host city to the Monument to the African Renaissance. To most, his death was significant insofar as it was the only political topic neutral enough to fill in awkward familial silences at Christmas dinner. To me, Masterful Chief Happiness Vision Kim Jong Ill’s death was life-changing. I am speaking as someone who crafted her thesis topic around whatever subject would allow for the most expansive exploration of The Dear Leader. I was spellbound by his eccentricities. Did you know that Comrade Really-great Half-Off Sale Leader Kim Jong Il had defective rice kernels filtered out of his meals? Or that, during his tenure, he established the Kim Jong Il Longevity Institute tasked solely with keeping him alive (methinks they were understaffed this year)? Perhaps my favorite Dear Leader story surrounds the time he kidnapped his favorite South Korean actors for a mere eight years, surely for the production of some dynamite rom-coms. Deplorable man. Fascinating all the same.

I had to properly mourn the man who had earned me a good thesis grade. Luckily, as aforementioned, I was in the neighborhood of the Monument to the African Renaissance, a project built and financed by North Koreans. What better proxy for an ugly man than this ugly monument?

Elise Bergerson mourning at the Monument to the African Renaissance

So far as I can tell, no one likes this thing. For one, it was built in a conservative Muslim country where Qu’ranic prohibitions against depicting people render its very existence questionable. Also questionable: the nudity of the monument’s figures (see up skirt), the fact that the statue points away from the continent it’s supposed to celebrate, and that it is built on a raised base so as to be visible everywhere in Dakar -a city too dusty to see anything set at a distance. Most questionable: the fact that the expensive monument was built in the first place, when most of Dakar’s citizenry suffers from blackouts and other infrastructural shortcomings. Quite literally, the monument casts a shadow over people who are already often without working lights.

Monument to the African Renaissance Up-skirt photo

The monument is the perfect place to theatrically weep over the death of Dear Comrade Leader and to witness a prime example of a class of monuments I term the Fugly-Ass-Unwanted-Gift-Of-Aesthetically-Challenged-Communists monument. For whatever reason, there is an abundance of monuments designed by artists in communist (or former communist) states, foisted upon unhappy municipalities the world over. The Dakar citizenry now has to pay for the maintenance of a statue few appreciate, which includes the cost of 24-hour surveillance, as the structure has been barraged with bomb threats (for its sheer fug-ness, I presume).

For another example of this structural category, I suggest readers make a pilgrimage to Moscow to this monstrosity:

Monument to Peter The Great, Moscow Russia

What you’re staring at, aghast in horror (you can close your gaping mouth now), is a monument to Peter the Great, founder of St. Petersburg. Except, it’s not exactly that. Why is Peter standing atop three ships? Why is he dressed as a Roman Legionnaire? What is that decree he is holding? Well, chances are that this statue was actually meant to celebrate Christopher Columbus. The artist, Zurab Tsereteli, vehemently denies that this statue was meant to commemorate anyone other than Peter the Great. Coincidentally, Tsereteli approached the US in 1992 with plans for a statue depicting Columbus and was rejected. Still, construction commenced and, at some point -perhaps after the statue was allegedly rejected a second time by an unidentified Latin American country – the ever-resourceful Tsereteli decided to make lemonade with his sculptural lemons. The head of the statue was lopped and replaced by the likeness of Peter the Great. No need to concern yourself with the three ships’ similarity to the Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria. Also, ignore the fact that the statue depicting sea exploration ended up in a locale that fails to qualify as a port city.  It might also make your brain hurt to think that the monument to Peter the Great was erected in a city he historically detested, so ignore that too. Just let the fug wash over you.

Like the Monument to the African Renaissance, the statue of Peter the Great has been subject to bomb threats by Moscow residents. It too is under 24-hour surveillance. When Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov suggested that the statue be relocated to Peter’s beloved city, St. Petersburg residents countered with the suggestion that it instead be moved to Mironov’s vacation home. Not to mention that the high price of dismantling the statue, six million dollars, has thwarted efforts to rid Moscow of my favorite eyesore.  

Surprising then, given the costs associated with hosting a Fugly-Ass-Unwanted-Gift-Of-Aesthetically-Challenged-Communists monument, that the residents of Bayonne, New Jersey so quickly accepted another statue designed by the great Tsereteli, this time, a monument “To the Struggle Against World Terrorism”:

To the Struggle Against World Terrorism Bayonne

The monument, a hyper-literal interpretation of the grief of surviving victims of the September 11th terrorist attack, features a forty-foot teardrop suspended in the crack of a rectangular tower. But let’s be real: there’s something…vaginal about it, is there not? I’m pretty sure that’s what vaginas look like.

The monument was originally meant to be a gift to Jersey City but, upon seeing its photo-realistic vulvic form (a refreshing counterpoint to all those phallic obelisks that litter our global skyline), they passed the buck to Bayonne. Clearly, Bayonne’s residents don’t know what they’re in for. I can only imagine that the small town’s economy will be upended as municipal funds are earmarked for the inevitable 24-hour surveillance that the monument will undoubtedly require.

On the other hand, maybe the monument “To the Struggle Against World Terrorism” will finally put Bayonne on the map much as Tsereteli’s equally fug statue “Good Defeats Evil” made New York famous.

Good Defeats Evil, Tsereteli

Every year, millions of tourists forego tours to the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building in favor of this statue, on the grounds of the UN building in Manhattan, which commemorates the historical battle between a medieval horseman and his Godzilla-Mothra-hybrid foe.

This last statue makes me think that maybe I’m too hard on the creators of Fugly-Ass-Unwanted-Gift-Of-Aesthetically-Challenged-Communists monuments. Indeed, once in a while, they create something so perfectly, unimpeachably grotesque that the monuments become sublime testaments to the strivings of a flawed humanity. These are monuments that, in showcasing the artistic failures of humankind, also spotlight the the surprising achievements of people. If we live in a world where a North Korean tyrant was able to finance a statue of Africans rising out of a volcano, only to be headed back in the direction of the nearest ocean. Doesn’t that make the invention of the printing press and the success of the first transcontinental flight even better? We need these fug-ass monuments as a reminder of the relative beauty out there. Maybe instead of gazing upon their outward unsightliness, we should see them for their internal beauty: as compasses of the relative benchmarks of human history, even if these compasses sometimes point in the exact wrong direction.

Elise Bergerson currently lives in New York City and works in international affairs. She is a first-time contributor to PLAZA.

Well known directors debuted on MTV, such as Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, David Fincher. Martin Scorsese and Mark Romanek. People started taking notice of the music video as an art form, this wasn’t just a filmed live gig, that we would often see in the 80s. In the 90s  the music video was a carefully constructed theatrical masterpiece, with budgets often as big as Hollywood blockbusters. The most expensive music video ever made, Micheal and Janet Jackson’s ‘Scream’ cost over $10,000,000 was shot in 1995 by director Mark Romanek.

Particularly in the R&B and Pop genres the setting for many of these videos were vast futuristic landscapes, with minimalist steel chambers with oceans of mercury and walls of flames. It seems the upcoming 21st Century sparked the imagination of directors to set our favorite stars in utopian landscapes that represented sophistication and a new flawless luxury (see J.Lo in ‘Play’).

I’ve put together some of my favorite stills from the hits of the time!

TLC 'No Scrubs' directed by Hype Williams 1999

Madonna Bedtime Stories directed by Mark Romanek 1994

O Town Liquid Dreams 1999

Missy Elliot The Rain 1997 Directed by Hype Williams

Missy Elliot I Want You Back featuring Mel B directed by Hype Williams 1998

All is Full of Love Bjork directed by Chris Cunningham 1999

Shes a Bitch Missy Elliot 1999 - Hype Williams

Rio Underground:

Dalston Underground Studios at the Rio Cinema

Miyuki Kasahara (Guest Artist) - Calum F. Kerr – House of O’Dywer 
PLAZA (Ed Simpson & Oliver Herbert) - Marina Potok 
Lisa Slominski – Lex Thomas – Nick Wild 

At Home With the Ludskis #3 Winter Garden Edition
Saturday 14th January 2012.

For one night only artists from Dalston Underground Studios are exhibiting in the 
Rio Cinema Basement as part of At Home With the Ludski’s 3
Saturday 14th January 2012 from 11.30pm to at least 2.30am! 

See - http://www.dalstonunderground.org.uk

Tel 020 7241 9410 

Tickets are £5 with stage performances, short-films and more, they can be bought via the Rio Cinema website http://www.riocinema.org.uk or on the door. 

Updates found on: http://www.facebook.com/AtHomeWithTheLudskis

The now abandoned terminal was designed by German company Dorch-Gehrmann of Wiesbaden. The new terminal could accommodate 800 passengers at one time and the parking apron 11 aircraft. The airport operated as a busy European holiday hub which  became the site of chaotic scenes as holidaymakers and other foreign nationals tried to leave the island prior to the conflict.

The airport is unlikely to be ever used again.