'12LVE': Michael Tompert Destroys Apple Products To Reveal Our Techno Fantasies (PHOTOS)

You know that scene in Office Space where three disgruntled Initech employees beat the crap out of a printer? How cathartic must that have been? Artist Michael Tompert probably has some idea.

For his "12LVE" project, the Stuttgart, Germany native burned, shot and crushed iPhones, MacBooks, and other Apple devices. He then recorded the destruction in a series large-scale images, which are meant to examine our relationship to our beloved gadgets. According to Tompert's website, this relationship "has less to do with technology or knowledge and is more and more about advertising and fashion, bordering on fetish."

The idea for the show was hatched when, fed up with his sons fighting over an iPod Touch, Tompert smashed the device on the ground. "[My sons] were kind of stunned -- the screen was broken and this liquid poured out of it. I got my camera to shoot it. My wife told me that I should do something with it," he told the Los Angeles Times during a 2010 interview.

Tompert isn't the only person with a taste for iDevice destruction. Shooting, smooshing and stomping Apple products appears to be the torture porn of the tech world. According to a Complex slideshow, good ways to annihilate Apple products include shooting, dropping, dynamite and even blending. Wanna see? Head over to Complex to check out 16 videos of iOwners going crazy on their devices, but be warned some of them are pretty graphic.

Tompert's show is currently hanging in the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, Germany, but according to a spokesperson for the artist, will soon be headed back to the U.S. It was previously featured in San Francisco and Palo Alto, California. For more information about upcoming shows check out Tompert's website, here.

Check out all 12 prints as well as awesome detail shots in our slideshow below: