An artist has used real flies to turn a Rolex watch into artwork, with paint picked up by the insects leaving a unique, colourful splatter.
The project Time Flies, created by art studio Milfshakes, was part of a raffle draw enabling the winner to claim the unique watch – but it left some online commenters bemused.
A video demonstrating the art process was viewed 4.6m times, with 293,000 likes and 2669 comments.
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The artwork consists of a Rolex that had its glass screen removed, and was placed on a pedestal inside an asterisk-shaped containment unit, with multiple flies inside it.
What’s The Jam reports that inside the case, there were multiple pools of paint, which meant that when the flies made contact with them, they’d get paint on their feet – or consume it and vomit it up.
The intention was for the paint to transfer from the flies onto the watch face, mimicking an abstract form of painting.
This left the watch face covered in individual fly-strokes.
Spanish-based design company Milfshakes was founded by artist Nil Ojeda.
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It has created limited-run items and exclusive art projects since 2023.
Many people were impressed, but not everyone considered the finished artwork a masterpiece.
One user said: “I would love to see the person who came up with this explain the idea.”
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Another viewer joked: “Will the flies take % of the sale?”
A third person added: “I’d love to see the meeting where someone thought of putting flies to s*** on a Rolex.”
Alex said: “That’s what we call ORIGINALITY. Did this happen to you in a dream or something?”
Another person said: “This is genius.”
The watch was won on Monday (2 Feb).
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