Australian Woman Convicted of Defacing Priceless ‘Blue Blob’ with Googly Eyes: Judicial Eyesore Ensues

If Australia is to be remembered for anything in the 21st century, it will surely be for treating the sticky application of googly eyes with the urgency of a national security breach. This week, twenty-year-old Amelia Vanderhorst secured her place in legal history, convicted for the high crime of bestowing sentient vision upon Mount Gambier’s most controversial lump: the so-called ‘Blue Blob.’

WOMAN CONVICTED FOR DESECRATING PUBLIC ART WITH GOOGLY EYES

In the hallowed halls of Mount Gambier Magistrates Court, the accused paraded her remorse with all the solemnity one might reserve for a misplaced war memorial. Her crimes? Consuming three litres of vodka, a cocktail of MDMA, and affixing two pieces of plastic ocular joy to a sculpture that locals had already christened ‘the Blue Blob’—a work so beloved that its defenders crawled from the woodwork as soon as the eyes were peeled off.

For this act of inspired trespass, Ms Vanderhorst was sentenced to community service and ordered to cough up A$2,000 in compensation, because the cutting-edge science of sticker removal apparently eludes even Australia’s finest art restorers. One must wonder if this sum covers the therapy required for those who gazed too long into the blob’s temporarily animated soul.

The court heard that plans to pursue her on charges of property damage were heroically downgraded to the far more glamorous ‘graffiti’ label. After all, in the war on vandalism, nothing says zero tolerance like dropping the full prosecutorial hammer on the common googly eye. Ms Vanderhorst’s lawyer reported she has since moved on to making what are known, in legal circles, as ‘better decisions.’

The only thing more fragile than the sculpture, apparently, is the city’s capacity for irony.

The sculpture at the heart of the scandal, ‘Cast in Blue,’ cost a humble A$136,000 and purportedly depicts an ancient marsupial ant-eater, a creature so unforgettable that it exists exclusively in the minds of Mount Gambier’s art commissioning committee. The public, invigorated by the sticker incident, were reminded once again that in Australia, beautifying public art with googly eyes can and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of municipal law.

• Accused was intoxicated but still considered dangerously artistic
• Community divided: some crave more eyes, others fear for the future of sculpture everywhere
• Cost of actual art: $136,000; cost of removing two stickers: priceless

As the dust settles on this cultural cataclysm, citizens are reminded to keep their eyes—googly or otherwise—peeled for further developments. ConfidentialAccess.by will be watching closely, as ever, in partnership with ConfidentialAccess.com, ready to unmask the next threat to the nation’s most vulnerable blobs.