This Giant Skinless Human Body Puppet In Melbourne Is Your One-Way Ticket To Nightmare Town

Public art gets a bad rap in Australia, often unfairly — people have a weird affection for odd-looking bits of public art, and besides being a masterpiece, Skywhale also has great potential as a national defence strategy. But a Melbourne-based art exhibit that’s been doing the rounds online lately is getting the kind of reaction normally reserved for clowns, episodes of American Horror Story and again, clowns, because it is abso-friggin’-lutely terrifying.

Standing (what if this thing learns to stand? WHAT IF IT LEARNS TO STAND) at 26.5 metres tall, Everybody isn’t just an accurate anatomical representation of a human being — it’s an interactive art exhibit with actors inside each of the model’s constituent parts, allowing limbs, muscles and even organs to move, detach from the main body and run around like a ’70s horror-porn B-movie made by the lovechild of David Lynch and Hannibal Lecter. It’s been doing the rounds in Melbourne at least since 2012, but it’s gotten a whole heap of attention in the last week thanks to a recently-uploaded video of a performance at the Summersalt Festival in February, which you can view below before setting your device on fire and throwing it into the ocean provided to the east. And if the opening seconds of the video unsettle you, just wait until the demonic vital-organ sex party kicks in at around 1:40. Hoo boy.

The project was put together by puppet company Snuff Puppets, who have since been declared enemies of the state and may be hunted and killed on sight. “Everybody is an exploration of the human condition from birth to death and a metaphorical, metaphysical and magical investigation of the body,” goes their description of the installation, which neglects to mention that Everybody is also one of Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings of Hell come to life on the streets of Melbourne.

A number of people have taken exception to what they deem the exhibit’s explicit and inappropriate nature, especially for children, as though kids learning how the human body works is more objectionable than the look in this thing’s bottomless black eyes. In response to criticism, Snuff Puppets artistic director Andy Freer released a statement last week, saying: “Children whose parents and guardians allowed them to view this work expressed their joy, fear and innocent curiosity. Poos and wees, penises and vaginas, bums and boobs, we deal with these human body parts and functions multiple times daily and children in particular think it’s hilarious. If you’re wondering, any expression of sexuality is most definitely kept for an adults only audience.”

With the attention Everybody has garnered it’s likely to be a success for some time, meaning you too can learn the mysteries of the human body by witnessing the birth of a gargantuan demon-child, being engulfed by a giant inflatable shit or firehose-sprayed by a rampaging rubber dick on legs.

And don’t come crying to me when it turns out to be one of the Titans from Attack On Titan and starts eating kids. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya, because I just did.