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Remember when art was painting the Sistine Chapel? Well, now art is force-feeding McDonald's to ants. Not satisfied with holding a magnifying glass between them and the sun, Brooklyn artist Elizabeth Demaray has been slowly poisoning a tank full of ants with Big Macs for the past month.
Instead of seeds or whatever ants eat, for the past month her tank full of ants have only had one option: Mickey D's. It's kind of like "Super Size Me," only with ants instead of Morgan Spurlock, and the insects aren't getting fat, they're just straight-up dying.
Although we can think of worse ways to die than being forced to drink Shamrock Shakes -- actually hold on a second, that sounds really terrible. It's a good thing ants don't have feelings or we might be slightly upset by this.
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Friday 27 August
By Amy
I wish there were more pictures of her art piece. I'm highly interested! Who doesn't love ant farms OR McDonald's?
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Friday 10 September
By Elizabeth Demaray
Hi Emerald,
Thank you so much for posting this story by I promise you, no ants are being hurt. This misconception may have been based on a NYTimes story about the project that contained a factual error, neglected a few important details and may have created a misrepresentation of the project. Below is the letter I just wrote to the times about the project. All my thanks,
Elizabeth Demaray
To the Editor:
I am pleased that the Science Times chose to dedicate a quarter page to Corpor Esurit, or we all deserve a break today (8/24/10), an art piece that I created in consultation with the respected animal behaviorist Dr. Chris Johnson, and several zoological institutions that keep ants. However, the review was incorrect regarding the species of ant in the exhibition and neglected a few important details.
Pogonomyrmex occidentalis, the species of ant that is actually housed in the exhibition, is also a harvester ant and, like the Pogonomyrmex barbatus—the species discussed in the article, it is an ant of choice for commercial ant farms, where it typically reside without a queen or brood. Pogonomyrmex occidentalis was not chosen at random but selected after careful consideration of its diurnal activity, foraging distance and nesting behavior, and of the wide array of seed foods and non-seed proteins it consumes.
The exhibit itself was funded by a grant from the Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Arts in Buffalo, and was built at eye height to facilitate first-hand observation of an animal that is rarely seen at an intimate distance. It includes a climate-controlled nesting area and offers these animals ideal tunneling material and foraging space. Observational questionnaires filled out by visitors to the gallery indicate that the ants are actively foraging for a wide variety of food items, while handouts listing the constituents of each food choice indicate that many of them are derived from seeds such as wheat and corn. Longevity in the population was also addressed at a gallery talk that Dr. Johnson and I gave on July 11th. The average life span of Pogonomyrmex occidentalis in an ant farm is less than a month. During the course of the exhibit, the colony cleaned house by interring their deceased in specific locations at the perimeter of their foraging areas.
This project is a consideration of industrial food production, the interconnected nature of our food chain, and the plight of life forms, including humans, facing changing food sources and habitats. I look forward to seeing all of these topics addressed in future sections of the Science Times.
Sincerely yours,
Elizabeth Demaray
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