Sacred Cow

“Sacred Cow” is to be a physical and audible representation of the overlapping processes between life and death. The cow is chosen as a recognizable and familiar object in most cultures as a widely valued economic and consumable product. Furthermore, the piece is to create awareness of a living organism’s transition from life into death.

The installation consists of 3 parts: 1) video/audio documentation projected on screen – the cow’s real-time life and death transition while using the monitoring devices 2) a sculptural installation of the artifacts – preserved cow’s head attached to monitoring systems and readouts 3) living muscle tissue culture display – from a biopsy of the cow.

Medical-grade physiologic monitoring devices record data from brain and muscle activity during the climax of life and the initiation of death that is recorded and interpreted. An electroencephalograph (EEG) reads brain activity. An electromyography (EMG) reads muscle activity. Each of the monitor’s analog output is to be translated into specific tonal qualities to produce in real-time, the sounds of death and dying. The looped recording will accompany the video.

Living muscle tissue is to be available for viewing. Tissue culturing methods and incubation will promote cell proliferation of the cow’s muscle cells, thus, resulting in the actual continuance of the cow’s biological cell line in vitro. The activity of tissue culturing and expanding the cow’s live muscle cells will be displayed in a customized incubator. Viewers can witness the proliferation of cells through microscopic imaging. The display of the active cells also symbolizes as a living memorial to the cow that has been sacrificed for human consumption.