God is Dog spelled Backwards

Mathieu Zurstrassen (BE)

God is dog spelled backwards is a 360° kinetic artwork, and a tribute to Guy Debord’s *La société du Spectacle,* first published in 1967.

God is Dog spelled Backwards

“In 2019, I finished this kinetic sculpture which it meant a lot for me to complete. It had almost spontaneously earned the title: god is dog spelled backwards. The choice of title seemed at first, to me, only an obvious orthographic evidence, an artifact intended to divert the attention from the relevant. It was also a nod to the Fluxus movement, for which I’ve always had a deep fascination. That being said, I learned a little later ―while trying to find any reasonable argument for this uncanny choice― that it had been actually used for the first time in 1967, to name a three-minute film directed by Dan McLaughlin. The film features 3000 years of art history in just under three minutes. At a rate of eight works of art per second to original music by Beethoven (5th Symphony). The artwork battery-operated and was at the basis of a short movie project in which I would move the device in various contexts and take short, 15-second videos. This is a way to share the importance of the context in which an artwork is displayed to the public.”

Project Credits / Acknowledgements

Production: M.Zurstrassen, 2019
This work was made possible thanks to the support of La Fédération Wallonie Bruxelles
This project is co-funded by the European Commission´s DG CONNECT, in the framework of the Horizon 2020 programme of the European Union under the S+T+ARTS programme´s Regional STARTS Centers. http://www.culture.be/

Biography

Zurstrassen bestows added symbolic and philosophic value to his work by tapping into the invisible quality and relationships created between sender and receiver. He uses the codes of craftsmanship to solve aesthetic issues that are often at the border of the indefinable. Mathieu combines the ambiguity of materials with a poetic streak, both delicate and humorous.

Europäische Kommission Horizon 2020
EU
STARTS EU