Artist Ben Campbell stumbled upon a connection between modern society and ancient Egypt: we're all yearning for immortality. Whether through mummification and pyramids or Botox and preservatives we all just want to live forever, don't we? Campbell then embarked on a way to connect the ancient and the modern in the most disgusting way possible, eventually constructing a life-size Mummy out of mushed up McDonald's food.
Campbell went into the details of the process in an e-mail to HuffPost Arts: "First I dried the food out and ran it through a blender. Next I mixed it with a clear epoxy resin that's used primarily for marine applications and poured it into rubber molds of the mummy form that I had prepared earlier." He continued, "The last part was using the mixture to stick the cast parts to each other and cleaning the sculpture up." Although he said it "wasn't disgusting," we are not sure we agree.
The whole endeavor cost $200, and was made entirely from McDoubles and French fries. Given that you can get a McDouble for a dollar these days, that is a lot of Happy Meals. The artist used resin to hold the meat monster in place, but the rest is up to nature. Just how long it will stay in place remains to be seen, but given McDonald's history we are guessing those burgers won't be rotting any time soon. (Last year a woman reportedly kept a McDonald's cheeseburger on her counter for a year without any mold or bacteria forming.)
Campbell is well aware of these mighty burgers' resilience. He says on his Kickstarter page: "Archaeologists ... will be digging this stuff up thousands of years in the future. Especially if something cataclysmic happens to our society."
Ben is currently at work on an entire exhibition of the connections between Egypt and contemporary America. Is this a worthwhile cultural connection between past and present, or is it just the most stomach-turning work of art you've seen today? Let us know, readers!
Check out this slideshow of the mummy from all angles, and scroll down for a video of the proposed art show. We recommend not watching while eating.
