British Police Arrest Artist For Getting Strangers To Stroke Her Breasts

by Jake Kilroy 

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Milo Moiré is a fascinating artist. She’s made a name for herself far beyond beloved Switzerland by making her bare body a key component in her work. She’s strutted nude through city streets with the names of clothing items scrawled across the appropriate body part and, in response to Cologne’s New Year’s Eve sexual assaults, protested bare with a sign that read, “Respect Us! We are not fair game even when naked!!!”
Her latest project is called Mirror Box. In it, Moiré struts around European cities adorned in a mirrored performance box outfit of sorts. The curious attraction though is that surrounding pedestrians can stick their hands—after a thorough sanitization—into the box and feel her breasts or vagina for 30 seconds. Her press release explained the idea.

Moiré has taken the liberty of showing female desire, thus giving women a sexual voic. The audience’s reflection on the mirrored box simultaneously becomes a visual metaphor for the role reversal from voyeur to the object of view: a constant play of inversions analogous to our roles in the digital world.

The performance didn’t exactly go over well in London, however. Not long after the Moiré began in Trafalgar Square, the Swiss artist was arrested. She wound up with a “4-digit fine” and 24 hours in a prison cell. Once released, Moiré pointed out the arrest as an indicator of why Britain should stay in the European Union, as the vote took place just yesterday. Hyping “regulated uniformly” and cultural unity in Europe, the artist pointed out how the Dutch police only complained that the megaphone was too loud.