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Artist News
PETA condemn Matthew Herbert pig slaughter
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 15 February 2010
Electronic musician Matthew Herbert has been working on an unusual project since May last year. Entitled ‘The Pig’, he set out with the aim of recording the life of a pig from birth to death, then turning the sounds he collected into music and releasing it all as an album.
The project hit various snags along the way, starting off when he managed to miss the birth of the original pig, setting everything back by two months. The latest problem was that Herbert was unable to find an abattoir that would allow him to record the pig being slaughtered. However, last Wednesday, he posted a message to the blog where he is chronicling the project’s progress, simply saying: “The pig is now dead”. It’s not clear if he was able to record the slaughter or not.
The next stage is to record the butchery process, before the meat is cooked by a number of chefs, apparently including Heston Blumenthal, and eaten. Other parts of the pig will be made into items including musical instruments.
Animal rights organisation PETA has condemned the project, telling Gigwise last week: “No one with any true talent or creativity hurts animals to attract attention … Pigs are inquisitive, highly intelligent, sentient animals who become frightened when they are sent to slaughterhouses, where they kick and scream and try to escape the knife. They are far more worthy of respect than Matthew Herbert or anyone else who thinks cruelty is entertainment”.
