When given the chance, will we make an ethical decision?
Art is meant to challenge society’s way of thinking. Every now and then, a project comes along that does exactly that.
Famously known as creators of the Big Red Boots and the ATM leaderboard installed in the Art Basel Miami, MSCHF is an art collective founded by Gabriel Whaley.
Whaley describes MSCHF as an organisation that engages art, fashion tech, and capitalism through its unique bi-weekly drops. It seeks to critique, intervene, and stimulate critical thinking about the world around us.
For its 113th project, the organisation is presenting global consumers with a complicated moral dilemma.
Our Cow Angus is a project which began with a cow born in March of this year.
Named Angus, the cow was acquired by MSCHF from a slaughterhouse and is now being pre-sold as various items while he is still alive.
So far, the cow been partly sold as 400 units of burgers, named the “Angus Burger 3-pack”. As the name implies, purchasing customers would receive a package of 3 ground beef burgers made from the meat of Angus.
The cow is also being sold as 4 units of the “Angus Bag,” a crossbody bag to be made from the skin (or rather, leather) from Angus. These products will be delivered two years from now, when Angus is ready for slaughter.
You can follow Angus’ journey via the “Angus Diary” where updates and pictures of Angus are posted regularly.
The moral dilemma of this project arises when buyers are sent an “Angus Token” which serves both as a proof of purchase and a “seal of sending”, allowing customers to enter their shipping address.
Customers are also sent a “seal of regret,” an additional code which allows customers to cancel their order.
MSCHF has proposed that if 50 percent of the orders are canceled, Angus will live and be sent to a “Home For Happy Cows”, while the money raised will be used to give him a better life.
Still, there is no certainty whether this number of customers will trigger their ‘Seal of Reget’ ultimately cancelling their orders, meaning Angus’ fate could see him die and be converted into the products mentioned above.
But just like in real life, where not all decisions have the same value, a total of 800 voting shares were sold.
There were 400 votes attributed to the $35 USD “Angus burger pack”, meaning individuals who purchased one of these will only have 1 vote. Another 400 votes were distributed in 4 units of $1200 USD “Angus bag”, granting anyone who purchased a bag 100 votes each.
This share system makes the dynamics of cancellation a little more complicated, because the monetary and vote value of these products varies widely.
There are only two positive outcomes for Angus: a unanimous agreement among the votes with a lower value or receiving the mercy of those who have a more valuable vote.
The official MSCHF website explains that they decided to carry out this project to demonstrate how collective decisions to stop consuming animal products have a tangible impact on reality.
Our Cow Angus is a simulation of buyer’s remorse, presenting a reminder that consumers have the power to make a real change. The project represents our wider reality, where our actions do have real world consequences.
On the one hand, this project presents us with the question of whether we should change the fate of an animal, since Angus was destined to die in a slaughterhouse anyway.
And on the other hand, we are presented with the idea that if we had the opportunity to buy Angus and give him a better life, why not do it? Why rely on the hope that someone else will save him, when to some extent he has already been saved from his original fate?
Whether the project is ethical or not depends on the decisions made by individuals, based on their morals and beliefs.
Hello, I\’m Eunice(She/her), born and raised in Mexico. I write about Latin American pop culture, my writing focuses on showcasing emerging talents who are disrupting their respective industries, and to help you discover new things to break your routine.
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