A Creative Form of Writing in Prague

However, it does require dropping trou.

Howdy! I’m Joey, back with more Fun Fact Friyay. We’re taking the piss with this fact.

In front of the Franz Kafka Museum in Prague, you can text a message and two statues will spell it out by peeing onto a Czech Republic map.

Whenever I travel, I love finding strange sculptures within the city. For instance, Kansas City has a massive array of badminton shuttlecocks on the lawn of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Copenhagen has a set of six wooden giants just chillin’ out next to a farm, under a bridge, and in other areas on the outskirts of town.

Yet of all the places I’ve been to, the weirdest collection of sculptures seems to live in Prague. That’s largely thanks to David Černý, who has an eccentric group of statues in several busy pathways around the Czech Republic capital.

One of those statues is outside the Franz Kafka Museum. Kafka is a Czech author. He wrote one of my favorite short stories ever, The Metamorphosis. In fact, that book was one of the inspirations behind my own collection of short stories!

He wrote some other stuff, too, but remained relatively unknown during his lifetime. After his death, his works became more popular—popular enough that he now has a museum in Prague.

If you head toward that museum, you might notice two statues standing in front of it. These statues are peeing an endless stream of water onto a map that’s shaped like the Czech Republic. Černý built the bronze sculpture, officially named “Proudy,” in 2004.

He told The L.A. Times that the inspiration behind the sculpture was a Czech idiom about “peeing over somebody.” In English, that roughly translates to “getting one over on someone.” Černý said that’s how the country behaves—a lot of trickery and sneaky activities.

These fellas have hips that rotate and spell out famous Czech sayings on the map. Visitors can send a message via SMS, and the sculptures will begin transcribing the message.

And unlike the men’s bathroom at most bars and the puppy I’m fostering, these statues are much more accurate with their streams. We’re all grateful for that.

In case you need a bit more wackiness today, here are some other bonkers statues in Prague.