There is no day off working on a non-automated pig farm. Jus like us, pigs need to eat and drink every day. For 365 days a year, we cannot stop the operation of feeding. Only with a regular daily routine can the pigs be healthy, and the pigs have grown accustomed to live according to our working hours. At times we could not wake up in time to feed them in the morning, as we were still tired from delivering piglets the night before, we were often woken up from our dreams by their squeaky sound of hunger as well as the rumbling noise of them rubbing their bodies against the railings.
The pigs squeak according to the agenda everyday, however their squeaks for “food” are often blurred by other sounds they make. Newborn piglets squeak for “help” when their mothers’ enormous bodies come down on them. Sometimes when we are busy, we often mistake piglets’ squeaks of “excitement” when they fight for mother’s nipples as squeaks for “help”. When their squeaks for “food” reach climax, piglets will jointly push up the metal bowl using their noses. The metal bowl that contains their food is larger than their own sizes, and makes chiming sounds as it falls repeatedly back down. The piglets will be shell-shocked instantaneously by this loud chiming sound they created, and suddenly become dead silent. There are other types of squeaks…when we work on a pig farm, the sounds and squeaks have become a very important part of our job that requires extra attention.
Pig farm in itself is an alarm clock and an automatic calendar. There are routine tasks almost every moment; the pig farm always lets you know what to do at a constant pace, according to a constant schedule, and through a constant way of telling time. Under economic pressure, the non-automated pig farm is a clock of life that goes on forever. The around-the-clock operation needs to be carried out 365 days a year in order to sustain life. When we are busy, we cannot monitor everything, and we have grown accustomed to find out what is going on around the pig farm by relying on the sounds and noises of the alarm clock (the pig farm itself) that surrounds us.
This work records all the events that routinely take place on a pig farm. The real images and imaginative impressions of the easily mistaken sounds and corresponding images are placed side by side, overlapped, recalled, and are ultimately constructed into the reality heard and seen. Conflicts of visual and audio imaginations are used to describe the everyday feelings of one or multiple “very realistic” imaginations regarding a certain state of existence formed by real/fake, and abstract/concrete messages.
by- WU Chang-Jung
