Guest guest Posted February 14, 2009 Report Share Posted February 14, 2009 http://www.greenmuze.com/animals/farm/816-virtual-battery-hen-cage.html Friday, 13 February 2009 GreenMuze Staff The Virtual Battery Hen Cage by Mark Middleton. Factory farm. Battery hen cage. We hear these phrases, but most people have no idea what they mean. American artist Mark Middleton has come up with an innovative new website to help people understand what life is like for animals living in factory farm conditions. His first visual project, the Virtual Battery Hen Cage, allows people to experience a battery hen cage through the eyes of a chicken. We caught up with Mark Middleton to ask him a few questions about his compassionate new project. Tell us a bit about Animal Visuals? AnimalVisuals.org is a showcase for interactive media to advocate on behalf of exploited animals. Why did you create the website? I want to create interactive visuals to attract people to the issue of animal exploitation, inform them about the abuses that animals are suffering, and let them know that there are simple things they can do to help animals. Visuals have a lot of power to inform and engage people. Animal rights issues are complex and can seem very abstract. I want to use visuals to make information about animal rights more concrete and digestible. Can you explain the Virtual Battery Cage to us? A battery cage is a device used on factory farms to confine egg-laying hens so that providing them with food and water and collecting their eggs can be automated, and to crowd the largest number of chickens into the smallest possible space. There are an estimated 300 million chickens currently confined in battery cages in the United States. The Virtual Battery Cage is an interactive flash movie that gives people a simulated view of what an intensively confined hen might see from the inside of a battery cage. The viewer can use their mouse to look around inside the cage. For reference material, I used photographs and video taken by undercover investigators and rescuers. Will the focus at Animal Visuals be on showing the conditions of animals used for food only? We have the most power to help the greatest number of animals by modifying the way we eat, because the vast majority of animals killed by humans are killed for food, so animals used for food will be the main focus. I don't have any projects planned that focus on animals used for other purposes, but I wouldn't rule it out. Are you hoping the 'visual' experience will help people understand how animals are treated? I hope that it will help people empathize with chickens who are intensively confined, and realize that there are living, breathing, feeling beings inside those wire cages. Chickens are intelligent, feeling, and they have an agonizing existence inside the cages. All we have to do to help them is to stop buying eggs †" something we can easily replace in our diets. Who do you expect will be using the site? I think that it will mostly attract people that are already interested in animal issues, but my hope is that they will share the site with their friends and family members who may not otherwise see it. Anyone with a website or social networking page can also embed the projects in their own pages. I also hope it will inspire people who are becoming curious about animal exploitation to learn more and get involved. How will the site help people understand factory-farming conditions? Virtual experiences have a unique power to put the viewer into the animals’ position. There may not be any other way to get inside a battery cage, or to get inside a chicken's head. With the tools currently available for creating interactive web experiences, there's almost no limit to what can be done. Why are animals so often overlooked in environmental discourse? Perhaps it's because honestly addressing animal issues means examining or changing the way that we eat, and this makes some people uncomfortable. But, it's easier than people think to switch to a plant-based diet. There's no question that eating less meat is better for the environment and for your health, but the greatest impact of eating less meat is in keeping animals from harm. Can we 'heal' the planet without addressing how animals are treated? I think that in order to reverse environmental decline and make human activity sustainable, it is crucial that factory-farming practices be addressed. Animal agriculture is a bigger contributor to climate change than transportation. While the cattle industry and the commercial fishing industry happen to do great harm to the environment, animal suffering is a separate issue from environmental sustainability. Environmentally sound practices may still cause harm to animals. There may be a way to make chicken farming environmentally sustainable, but the killing of chickens would still have to be justified. I think that killing animals because of the way they taste is unjust. Even if they are raised under sustainable conditions and given nice lives, they are harmed by the loss of their lives. What other visual representations have you got planned for your site? I'm working on an interactive visualization of the numbers of animals killed for food in the United States, because the numbers are so big, they’re difficult to wrap your head around. I hope to add a virtual veal crate from a calf's perspective and a virtual gestation crate from a pig's perspective. I also have plans for a few animations and videos. Anything you would like to add? The best thing that people can do to help chickens is to stop buying eggs! I’m always interested in hearing people’s reactions, so feel free to contact me through the contact form on my site. 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