Skip to main content

chessbradley
12th March 2020

Is it Art?: French Orbeez Bath

PSA: Don’t fill your bath with Orbeez
Categories:
TLDR
Is it Art?: French Orbeez Bath
Playing havoc with the French sewer system: Orbeez. Photo: Tony Hisgett @ Wikimedia commons

I’ll level with you. This semester is going faster than I can write my dissertation. In a few months, I face being unemployed as my job search is unfruitful. The only emotion I feel is stress.

Or thought I could feel. That’s until a French Youtuber, Cyril Schreiner, filled his bath with Orbeez. Orbeez are little polymer balls that kids are apparently obsessed with. For a bit of clout, Schreiner decided to fill his bath with these beads. So far, so good? I guess?

Anyway, for some reason, once his bath was full, Schreiner thought he could just… empty his bath? Like turtles don’t exist?

So, then, somehow these emerged in his toilet, and beads overflowed.

The stress of this situation was so intense that Schreiner began to speak German, which is known as the peak level of stress.

Funny enough. But then, his hoover caught on fire. A solution emerged in salt, only for him to have a litre of sh*t emerge from his sink- and apparently his neighbours’. His neighbour then emerged at the door, and Schreiner realised he was dans le merde as the whole neighbourhood’s water system had become a faecal boba tea. A letter then emerges, showing that he is France’s most wanted for his polluting ways.

I’m not (surprisingly?) the first person to question whether this is art. Some have noted the bad-to-worse trajectory is almost scripted. But does it matter? There’s a panic that transcends language barriers, a beauty in the universality of f*ck-ups.

Verdict: With a careful combination of drama and comedy, this is indeed art.


More Coverage

In the epicenter of homegrown talent, the Un-Fair-Ground exhibit provides visitors with a range of artworks whose familiarity and curiosity demand attention
Five art-market stories, five minutes. A beginner-friendly snapshot of January—from auctions to geopolitics—breaking down where the art world stands now. How has this January’s market shaken the post-holiday lull?
HOME Manchester proves itself once again to be a space where accessibility, ambition, and experimentation coexist, offering visitors an exhibition that is both intellectually rigorous and emotionally resonant
Castlefield Gallery hosts opening night for their latest exhibition, It Requires Getting Lost