【History Archives】

He spent two weeks inside a stuffed bear. He lived inside a hollowed-out rock. And now he's ready to transform into a chicken.

French artist Abraham Poincheval isn't your conventional artist,History Archives and his stunts and performances are redefining the meaning of "immersive" artwork.

For his latest oeuvre, simply entitled "Oeuf" (Egg), Poincheval will live inside a glass vivarium, wrapped in an insulating blanket designed by Korean artist Seglui Lee, until 10 eggs he's sitting on are hatched.

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Visitors of the Palais de Tokyo museum in Paris are able to watch the artist as he attempts to incubate the eggs, placed in a container under his seat, with his own heat.

To keep his body temperature high, he's also planning to eat "heating" foods like ginger.

If you wonder about practical matters such as eating and going to the toilet, keep in mind that Poincheval will be able to stand and leave the eggs for only 30 minutes a day. He'll also use a box beneath him for when the nature calls, though he won't be able to get up.

It usually takes a chicken 21 days to hatch an egg.

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"I will, broadly speaking, become a chicken," Poincheval, who believes the best way to understand objects is by entering them, said last month.

However, experts are sceptical on his latest stunt.

R. Michael Hulet, an associate professor of animal science at Penn State University, told Time magazine that the performance will likely put the embryos into an "abnormal situation", blocking them for a full-grown development as chicks or causing them to die soon.

That's because human beings have lower body temperatures than chickens. (Or else we'd all be hatching eggs?)