Controversial photo series by Michael Tompert and Paul Fairchild features smashed, dropped, shot up, and melted Apple products.
12LVE exhibition was first shown in San Francisco and will open again on December 12, 2010 in an art gallery in Palo Alto, California.
Also check out: Destroyed Paintings and Shattering Porcelain Figurines
url00
Why? Seems like a waste of a good product and less like art.
Nov 22nd, 2010
Yen
Can they just don’t destroy it and just give it to me? Such a waste!!
Nov 22nd, 2010
Heather
This isn’t a waste! Broken things can be so beautiful, these pix r rly cool, id love to have some prints in my house.
Nov 22nd, 2010
latincrow
Oh, the beautiful destruction..
Nov 22nd, 2010
The Quick Brown Fox did something?
Apples products have never looked better.
Nov 23rd, 2010
SaraJane
Sweet, Sweet justice!
Nov 23rd, 2010
Rez
What is your problem man
next time just give them to me
Nov 23rd, 2010
Rachael
I wish I had money like that to burn :|
Nov 23rd, 2010
Victoria
I actually really like some of these artworks, especially the ones with the ipods. They’re just so colorful haha! And i remember reading this article once saying that Apple’s products are actually very unsustainable. Like they make them so hard to fix that once you’ve broken them, you are forced to buy a new one.. i don’t know if it’s a smart strategy or not
Nov 23rd, 2010
oyikk
What The Fun ??!! I’d like to put those pics at my room though … :D
Nov 23rd, 2010
cycarla
NOOOO! I wish i had a mac.
Nov 23rd, 2010
hamid
no,for why?!!!!!!!!!!
Nov 23rd, 2010
drunkins
this is retarded, I can break things and call it art too. It’s not.
Nov 23rd, 2010
Syahid Rosley
Its seem like jealously is overwhelming.
Apple product still look freaking good even though its hardly “tortured”. If it build for art, it die for art.
Nov 23rd, 2010
Betty
I don’t get it.
Nov 23rd, 2010
Dean
Oh sure, when he does it it’s “art”; when I do it it’s “destruction of property”.
Just kidding. Pretty cool though. I wish I can break expensive things like that for the hell of it.
Nov 23rd, 2010
coyote37
What if someone do the same with windows product? i just don’t see the purpose…if there is….
Nov 23rd, 2010
Benjamin Christine
It hurts to look at all these!!! and I complete agree with coyote37, smash up the window 7 phone! :)
Nov 23rd, 2010
chazzzz
its art, I think the resulting are fab
Nov 23rd, 2010
Glenn Contreras
Afeter this pics, the post should be named “Destroyed apple fans heart”
I almost cry!
Nov 23rd, 2010
rptrcub
It’s fun to watch fanboys cry.
Nov 23rd, 2010
drMikey
the point is that apple products are so revered by so many to point of obsession, and the artist has turned that on its head by making a public display of their destruction.
its true, anyone (with proper funding) could do this, but the fact is that HE did it.
Nov 23rd, 2010
stupid
yea, this is so stupid… i could understand old broken products but the world is in one of the worst economic periods ever and we are smashing expensive electronics and calling it art… hey why we are at it, lets go grab some hospital equipment and smash those too, or maybe some sports cars… smash something and call it art… no.
Nov 23rd, 2010
Alex
Steve Jobs should see this..
Nov 23rd, 2010
dave e.
I’m an Apple guy, but not a freak about it.
I’m not surprised the Apple haters turn out in force, here; they’ll use any opportunity to bash “the other side” and miss the point of a display like this. The reality is, there’s different passions for different people, and you Apple haters would do well to remember that for every Apple fanbois there’s something that you have similar passion about – it may not be computer-related – and you would be similarly distressed about seeing icons of your passions in such a state of angst. There is no point in bashing the ‘other’ platform, as it contributes nothing to the overall experience of life.
The reason the Windows stuff isn’t broken for this purpose is that it’s not terribly attractive to begin with. No one cares what something that’s ugly or boring looks like when it’s transformed into a different state of ugliness. The whole point of this exercise is to show industrial things that were designed to be beautiful as well as functional, in a different state than what they’re designed to be in. One of the underlying themes in some aspects of art is to show things outside their natural state. That’s what’s been done, here.
The prudent approach, here, would have been to have used items that were already in a state of disrepair and would have cost more to fix than to replace. At that point, there’s a bittersweet element to their existence… can’t fix them, can’t use them, too pretty to throw away. So, might as well give them a “beautiful death” and capture that beauty.
Since I am capable of fixing most stuff like this that’s broken, it does pain me a little to see this stuff trashed. But hey, it is what it is.
Nov 23rd, 2010
Joel
Are these things being destroyed for the purpose of the photos, or were they destroyed and then passed along to the artist? I’ve seen lots of ‘art’ with smashed cans, etc. artists are free to choose their medium.
Nov 23rd, 2010
atHeightsphotog
I read controversial and asked myself ‘Why?’ Now that I read the comments I get it.
Personally, I LOVE this series. I own an iPhone and have constantly been daydreaming about smashing it with my sledge hammer ever since the new ios4 update. Anyone who owns a 3G has experienced the complete degradation of the phone’s quality since the update.
Now I get to keep my phone and soak in the beautiful aftermath of its complete destruction.
I want the poster
Nov 23rd, 2010
spavaroti
dave .e
you hit the spot.
ecxellent description…
but can’t it be recycled at least!!!
Nov 23rd, 2010
Ben
This will get the fan-boys in a tizzy… even the one’s that say they aren’t – lol.
Nov 23rd, 2010
G-rock
Don’t hate. These are nicely executed imagery. They were smashed and shot with a purpose. Looks beautiful.
Nov 23rd, 2010
Maurice
First thought upon seeing these: What did this guy’s art destroy besides just the products? When I see the blackenned smudges and the twisted metal, it just seems like such a waste of good material, and possibly a chemical hazard with the melted plastic. After photographing, did the artist properly dispose of all these materials?
@Victoria, Apple products are some of the most sustainable in the industry. Besides being built to last, they use much, much less plastic (which releases lots of terible chemical byproducts everytime it’s recycled, or if it’s left to slowly degrade on its own) than most electronics manufacturers. They use aluminum and glass for the enclosures, which are mostly nonreactive, and don’t release anything harmful to people or animals. On the topic of Apple repairs being prohibitively expensive, they’re really not. If the screen cracks on your $800 iPhone (that’s subsidized by your $60 to $100 per month wireless service plan) and you’re unwilling to pay the standard $199 to fix it, then please, give me your old phone! I’d pay the $199 and have a working iPhone for a quarter of the price! Even if I never turned on wireless service for it, that $199 is less than the price of a new iPod Touch.
Nov 23rd, 2010
Holy
I like this, since someone finaly figured out what thouse thing are good for ..
Nov 23rd, 2010
Tenebre
While I consider some of these pictures as aesthetically appealing, this type of “art” really doesn’t require any talent at all, just a deep wallet (or some well to do sugar-daddies).
Nov 23rd, 2010
Ty
Soon as I saw the first pic, I thought to myself “There are probably a dozen comments, bitching about how it’s a waste of money and resources.” It’s their own money and their own choice how to spend it. Personally, I think this is a pretty interesting and creative way to do so.
Nov 23rd, 2010
lippi
it’s not about “i could do it too”, it’s about having the idea of doing it. also, i believe it’s not that easy to compose photos like these. the artist makes trash look good.
Nov 23rd, 2010
Myself
we waste so much energy and do so much to the environment, just to destroy the project? I agree, waste
Nov 23rd, 2010
Dylan
At first I thought: How dare they destroy these beautiful objects? And then it hit me: I am attaching emotional value to an inanimate object and this artist is trying to elicit an emotional response. Well, this sure made me shiver. And angry. And it made me realize that perhaps we shouldn’t be so damn materialistic. Regardless of how beautiful the object is.
Excellent works of art.
Nov 23rd, 2010
motofix
Well, someone seemed to find out how to change the IPhone battery ;-)
More seriously, I see in these picture the real face of those products: evil inside.
Nov 23rd, 2010
You
WHAT is all the fuss about? I mean really.
Nov 23rd, 2010
D
@The Quick Brown Fox did something?
Ditto.
Nov 23rd, 2010
The Big J
I looked at the post on toxel, and thought it looked pretty cool. I opened the link, and I was very impressed! This is truly abstract art. Not only does it catch ones eye, but it brings up other emotions: was it properly disposed of?, how can they afford to do that?, what a waste??!, and other emotions of the like. Personally, I have to say that this was a marvelous idea and it looks expensive and beautiful. I’m sure the artist didnt create these so you people can bash it and call it stupid. It’s EXPRESSION.
Nov 23rd, 2010
Atavar
Looks good.
Nov 23rd, 2010
James Ward
So…anyone with a hammer and a camera can be an artist.
Nov 23rd, 2010
drunkins
@drMikey,
Yeah HE did it because everyone else knows it’s stupid and isn’t art at all. Art is CREATING something, not destroying something that SOMEONE ELSE made. Its dumb. Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb :)
Nov 23rd, 2010
dave e.
“Art” is anything you can get away with.
All of you are pissing back and forth about it… Apple haters continue to waste energy ‘peacocking’ against Apple, Apple enthusiasts are crying about wasted product.
Looks to me like the artist got away with it.
Congratulations!
Nov 23rd, 2010
dave e.
“So…anyone with a hammer and a camera can be an artist.”
No.
Anyone with a hammer and a camera can call themselves an ‘artist’… it’s up to you, the public, to validate their presentation as art, by acknowledging it. And that’s more than giving it a thumbs up or thumbs down… if you acknowledge something, it exists.
So, you may hate it or love it, but because you acknowledge it, it IS.
Same thing happened when recording technology was made available to the average user. The great thing was that anyone could make a record; the drawback was that anyone could make a record. Used to be, getting into the studio was an achievement, the studio was a rarified atmosphere. Now, we have 80% shit called ‘music’ obscuring the 20% of real music being made. As a recording engineer, I watched this change occur over the span of a few short years. Now, shitty ‘artists’ book time in studios as if it gives them cred. Which it doesn’t. It’s still about substance.
And that’s what we have here, with this work. Even the people who hate it have validated it by expressing that hate, the Apple haters have validated it by using it as a platform to say the same damned things they could say any day of the week.
If something is not what you’d consider “art”, don’t validate it by giving it your precious energy.
Nov 23rd, 2010
Jesse Colburn
ironically, this would never work with a windows device
Nov 23rd, 2010
bananaz
hey, this is art. its not stupid. sometimes, simple things can be artful. what is photography? you might as well be saying, “anyone with a professional camera can be a photographer.” thats not all that it takes. dont hate.
Nov 24th, 2010
Aki
..don’t get it at all. What’s the point ?
Nov 24th, 2010
Jaqi Mugo
Wow, people are really upset by this post.
I thought it was a beautiful tragedy depicted, these are probably things that were picked up from the trash bin behind Apple, or donated from people who had accidents with them, I highly doubt that someone just trashed them for the sake of photography.
You probably see something like this after your equipment is over and remember the good times you had with it.
I guess it also showed us what Apple means to us, too.
Nov 24th, 2010
Morten
Oh man. This is absolutely awesome. If this isn’t art, i really dont know what is. Im blewn away. Thumbs up from Denmark!
Nov 24th, 2010
Toski
pointless… as most modern art is!!
Nov 24th, 2010
Eric
Wow finally a good use for apple stuff.
Nov 24th, 2010
Lillian
I think someone didn’t like Apple that much =#
Nov 25th, 2010
Tsitra360
I know that trash can be used in a way to be art, but this to me seems to be getting attention simply because the products are popular. If these were less popular products then it would not even be here on toxel.
Nov 25th, 2010
Drew
Love the screen/glass trauma very cool.
rock on !
Nov 26th, 2010
Habibies
Don’t do this plz give its to meeeeeeeeeeee
Nov 27th, 2010
Darryl Jonckheere
Beautiful. I think this photographic series is provocative, showing us how unglamorous Apple products –and tech products in general can be.
Beneath the surface be see the sheer complexity of design and engineering, always hidden below the shiny branded facade. What this series says to me is that all computer products, in essence, are the same –same components, same materials, and same engineering to a certain extent.
Nov 28th, 2010
Koi Koi
Love it! I am an Apple lover and I think it’s awesome. Not has pretty in the inside as it is on the outside…
Nov 29th, 2010
Mike
Excellent, love it.
And yes that’s Art.
Dec 1st, 2010
iMan
Looks better with Microsoft products
Dec 2nd, 2010
cherry
LOVE IT.
says a lot, these are just THINGS. .. temporary, so seeing this shouldn’t break your heart.
yes, its getting more attention because the product is popular, thats the whole point, it means a lot more than a smashed piece of plastic/metal
im on a mac right now and this is what i feel like doing to it sometimes, somehow this series is therapeutic to my frustrations ahah
Dec 5th, 2010
Mathew
Art is really about engaging the viewer and getting an emotional response from them. These absolutely fantastic images make a statement… about how, as consumers, we have been seduced by Apple’s products and how we attach real emotions to them, negative or positive.
I personally LOVE Apple products and own far too many for my own good! But I also love these images for their statements.
Your emotional response is what makes this art.
Dec 6th, 2010
Peter
Other hardware wouldn’t look this interesting when distressed and destroyed.
If you posted a smashed dell laptop along with these, nobody would really care. I would think “hmm, maybe it’s time you got a macbook”.
Dec 6th, 2010
Ayoally
I don’t see how this is art, and it’s a waste of money.
I think they look sweet all broken, but not for a art museum!
waste of money toooooooo
Dec 7th, 2010
Bajo
Way of Apple marketing
Dec 13th, 2010
dssd
give me the iphone 3
Jan 16th, 2011
Emily
Pain in my heart :(
Feb 17th, 2011
Reilly
THE HORROR.
May 3rd, 2011
Hannah
They were probably already broken. I’m sure he didn’t run down to the apple store and spend 5k just to go home and burn them up.
Apr 30th, 2012
Vince
Im bored so im gonna break a bunch of expensive things and call it art.
Jan 8th, 2013