Erik Hobijn

Machine art pioneer Erik Hobijn’s suicide machine is equally exciting and controversial. Now retired, the DSI was a machine that enabled Hobijn to burn people to various degrees. The subject, coated with fire-resistant gel, stood on a rotating platform between a flame-thrower and a hose. The subject was automatically rotated to the extinguisher within approximately a half-second of being set on fire. Although subjects did not sustain real burns, they underwent a unique emotional experience. In addition to the momentary loss of the certainty about life, there was also the heightening of alertness and sensory perception.

With DSI Hobijn created the technology to experience life intensely by defying it. In our post-industrial society this self destruction is subjected to the will of a technical way of thinking. Basically, DSI is a tool to allow people to participate in a coming-of-age ritual, very much like violent initiation rites practiced in other cultures. According to Hobijn – popular and controversial in the industrial Eighties and its DIY, punk and machine artist collectives like Dogtroep – technology is the universal language of our culture. Now we are adults and there is no turning back...