LA Weekly ran an interview with West Texas artist Ben Campbell yesterday, talking about Campbell’s rapidly-spreading meme: his mummy made from ground Mcdonald’s food and plastic resin. Grisly, gristly, shriveled and nude, the mummy’s picture is spreading across cyberspace, although the Kickstarter campaign that Cambell hopes will make him rich is lagging: only eight backers and $146, although there are 15 days left for him to reach his $2500 goal. Since yesterday, Campbell’s mummy has been featured in the Huffington Post, Youtube (2,584 hits), MSN.com, Gawker, ad infinitum . . .and now Glasstire joins the scrum!
In his Kickstarter video, explaining the connections between ancient Egyptian burial practices and contemporary fast food, Campbell appears in oversized leather jacket, shades, fright wig and Indiana Jones hat; he could be anyone. Claiming to be “just a guy in West Texas who makes art out of food”, Campbell’s video ends with the obeservation, “If we don’t learn to laugh at ourselves, future generations are going to do it for us.”
