The 'Flea' was made for a show called 'Ark 2000' at Dilston Grove in London.

A hundred London artists were given animals to make. I was given a flea. The other halves of the pairs of animals were made by about eighty Berlin artists and the remaining animals were made by local non-artist community groups.

The flea measures your distance from the front of it. When you get within a meter of it, the proboscis slowly moves out and in eight times. Its out movement is more than its in movement so at the end of the movements, the proboscis is fully out. It then suddenly swivels down so that the end of the  proboscis is in a glass water container. A peristaltic pump then turns on and sucks water out of the container.   The proboscis quivers whilst it moves slowly in and out of the water. This helps to see the water being pumped through transparent tubing before being squirted out the back into a glass funnel from where it makes its way back to the glass container at the front. After the proboscis has moved in and out of the water eight times, it flicks back to its horizontal position and slowly retracts ready to start again.

The images shown here are the complete work and a detail showing the proboscis fully out.