Yale Daily News

I'm confused. I keep typing in "www.yaledailynews.com" and I keep somehow getting to The Onion.

On one hand, I feel a little sorry for Aliza if she told her advisors from the beginning that she wasn't really going to inseminate and abort for her project. On the other hand, she doesn't want to present her work unless we believe she did.

Aren't you getting a little old to expect us to pretend to believe you?

Oy--so much for "investigative journalism." Can't you folks ferret out any facts? And why not do the "human interest" (a.k.a., tabloid) angle and seek comments from her parents? A whole host of journalistic ideas springs to mind.

great: another day, another non-story. what difference does it make if no blood was found in her studio? did it ever cross anybody's mind that many art majors never even use their studio space?

at least I had a tiny amount of respect for her when it was thought to be real- now, bad project, bad dragging ones school through hell.

so was their blood in the project or not? not the studio- the project that noone has seen. what does no blood in the studio prove???

Dear YDN,

Please stop reporting on this issue and publishing editorials about it. It makes the daily look bad. There are many other things happening on campus for you to write about.

Thank you.

Ok, has anyone considered that this is all part of the artists' exhibit? Performance artist...remember? Good job there young lady!

Let this be a letter to Robert Storr.

Dear Robert,

The hostility by which you meet Aliza and her, “unacceptable project” is understood to be demonstrative of your pathological inability to take responsibility for a fiasco that incidentally took place at your school and under your leadership.

With regards to your last statement, I’m sorry to inform you that the art project is quite "realized" (kudos on the WSJ article, Aliza), but if you wanted Aliza's work to mesh better with the other 20 students, you may have done a better job managing the proposal/oversight process from the beginning.

Regardless, remember that Aliza is still a student at your school and while you’re lucky that no one is “taking the appropriate action” against you yet, you might as well act with some decency and character while the coast is clear.

Oh, and Robert, be my guest and forward this to the rest of the administration who’s complicit in this mess.

With sincere pleasure,

The Grad Student

It'd be sort of funny if it turned out that she didn't actually do anything except collect some footage of herself having her period. I'm no artist, but some of the work art students do seems quite labor-intensive. So she was able to do far less actual work and get a lot more attention than the other art students.

Yes, ironically, the hours and hours of work put into the art show by every student other than Schvarts will be overlooked. I'm sorry that every art student must suffer for the pretentious and completely self satisfying nature of one student who believes that she alone is deserving of any attention. pathetic. She'll probably end up blaming the school or society or other students in her "final thoughts" of her project which I'm sure we'll all have to be subjected to, whether we like it or not. sigh.

I get it, I get it. The purpose of this excerise is to (1) create a work of art that (2) destabilizes normative assumptions about bodily forms and bodily functions. That being the case, my view is that the “artist” has failed on both counts. The problem, and all art students should know this, is that there is no established set of aesthetic criteria to place a work of “performance art” into social perspective. Is it art, or is it self-indulgent garbage? Given that there seems to be little agreement about what “this” actually “is”, as evidenced by the op-eds and the blogs, it’s difficult to move on to a meaningful debate about its merits, or lack thereof. Put another way, it fails to provoke the kind of debate the “artist” claims she was aiming to incite.

Another problem: the concept itself is so repugnant that it alienates its would-be audience. I imagine the “work” will attract far less in the way of intellectual curiosity, and far more in the way of morbid fascination e.g. the types of people who incessantly download and view the “two girls, one cup” video from YouTube.

Moreover, debate about the authenticity of the acts e.g. is it a miscarriage, or just menstruation, precludes self-relfection about our “normative” assumptions as individuals, and as a culture about the human body, its forms and functions.

Ulitmately, the only issue this “work” calls into question is the mental health status of the person who created it.

I'm personally disgusted by this "artist"'s entire project. Has anyone given real consideration to the possibility she's mentally ill?

If she really were willing to impregnate herself repeatedly for the purpose of then aborting the fetus, wouldn't that make her a sociopath?

Personally, I think the whole thing is a hoax. But to even come up with an idea like this, girl is crazy. Not an "artist."

Praise God!!! I thank you for getting this story out! The world needs to know what kind of retched people there are all around us! MURDER as an art project!!! I pray for this world and ask that you ALL do the same. This is not only a horrible thing by my standards but by the worlds standards as well. I pray that this girl see her wrongdoings and ask for forgiveness.

I agree with Sarah that wretched is a good word to describe this entire mess. I, for one, am really tired of the way the word "art" is used to make anything presented by the "artist" as untouchable in some way. Not subject to any real criticism by anyone,least of all by those of us who are considered less than educated if we are disgusted by what the "artist" has done. And you want to know why so many of them are starving artists? What's the point of this vile project? Is there a message,a question, anything that will give the viewer pause?

The only thing that gives me pause is to wonder how this girl managed to stay in what is supposed to be a school of "higher" learning. Is she a relative of Howard Stern? He uses the first ammendment like a club to excuse every kind of base language the same way it would appear this girl is using the word "art" to excuse herself. Neither one of them is worth all this press. Get it right, Yale. Don't hold yourself above the community you live in. This is an opportunity for you to take a stand for what is good and right. We're watching.

"All induced abortions, whether surgically or chemically induced, terminate an entire, unique, living human being, a human being separated from his or her mother, as a matter of scientific and biological fact," says the text to be voted upon in South Dakota on November 4.

Thanks for the push, Aliza!

Two words: "Piss Christ"