I go back into the exhibition and look from above into the crater where the broiler chicken is set up. This gives me a better view of the broiler chicken as a whole. Then I also look into its skeletonised eye. It looks very much alive. The eye poses the silent question of how we deal with a creature that would not exist without us humans. An animal that can only survive in this highly bred form in the (un)human environment of a gigantic breeding farm. Even the posture of the 7.4 metre tall chicken is not majestic to me, but is more reminiscent of a small chick than a dangerous dinosaur.
In fact, chickens have an astonishingly close resemblance in their genetic information to their ancestors, the dinosaurs and the well-known prehistoric bird Archaeopteryx. A film right next to the artwork tells me how and why this work of art was created by Andreas Greiner.
Greiner proceeded with great precision - much like an archaeologist - when creating his artwork. A broiler chicken that died on a farm was scanned in a computer tomograph at Berlin's Charité hospital and these 3D images were then enlarged 20 times and printed out in plastic on a 3D printer.
How long must the machines have been running to produce the gigantic bones in this size?
What emerged is a very realistic skeleton of a mast chicken. But in gigantic size.
I can touch a printed bone right next to the artwork. I can see the marks left by the print and feel that this bone is completely silky. An extraordinary experience.
I am impressed and let the artwork take effect on me for quite a while. If you still want to see it, you have to hurry:
The artwork "Monument for the 308" can only be seen at phaeno until 18 June.
