having seen the work itself (Score 1)

It's nice to see slashdotters struggle with contemporary art that hits them where they live. Having seen the work being discussed (glaringly absent from the video, I agree), these artists are eroding categories and roles like "artist", "non-artist", "hacker", "tinker", "provocateur", "voodoo witch doctor", "weirdo", etc. One person's "bad engineering" is another's thought-provoking art. . . go figure, personal taste is involved. As for my personal taste, I agree with art historians that the purposes of art change dramatically over time. I agree with John Waters that a major (if not _the_ major) purpose of contemporary art is to provoke. I also agree with infomodity below that the vehemence of many responses here demonstrates the work's effectiveness. It obviously touches a few nerves and threatened some enough to provoke fiery responses, and others enough to leap to its defense. No response at all is the kiss of death for art. Ask Georgia O'Keefe, Frida Kahlo, Artemisia Gentileschi, Judy Chicago, Annie Leibovitz, Kara Walker, etc, etc.