Performance: carton of eggs

Medium
Shipping pallets; white fir, oriented strand board, carton of eleven free-range chicken eggs; one fertile chicken egg
Date
July 2022

A dozen eggs sit within an incubator, lifted from the shelves of a supermarket. One is fertile. To what extent do we, as consumers, hold any awareness of food production? The last chain of the supply line is all that remains visible to the consumer—producing terminal goods that fail to leave traces of their creation. This is new phenomena: ‘the voice of the current somnambulism’.

The concept of technological somnambulism encourages us to consider societal reorganisation as parallel to technical activity. We otherwise sleepwalk through mediations with technology, and fail to recognise the consequent effects on self. I do not know where these eggs came from, and neither could you.

In exhibiting the work, consider a month-long performance: the egg sits, embryonic. At the end of this process, a chick may (or may not) hatch. The sculpture becomes thereafter charged with duration, and an inclination towards bioart.

Liam Macann works though a profusion of new media art disciplines, operating out of Sydney. His works often investigate the philosophy of technology, alongside themes of labour, chance, and social history.