EGSTROGEN FARMS -MARY MAGGIC

The tactical media work Egstrogen Farms considers the domestication of women’s reproductive capabilities by the biotech industry, particularly hormonal ovarian stimulation therapies for the purpose of artificial insemination. Presented as a fictitious company, Egstrogen Farms markets a variety of eggs genetically modified to produce a “cocktail of gonadotropins”, the hormones responsible for regulating reproduction in vertebrates.

Along the lines of feminist authors such as Geena Corea, Margaret Atwood or Haraway herself, who in the 1980s pointed out the parallelism between the large-scale domestication of chickens and the massive confinement of women in the home, Maggic presents a criticism of reproductive marketing in the current biotech scenario. Openly inspired by the work of collectives such as subRosa or Critical Art Ensemble, Egstrogen Farms expands the symbology of the egg as a therapeutic, food and reproductive matrix by means of a parodic subversion of interspecies exchange.

Mary Maggic is an artist working at the intersection of biotechnology, cultural discourse, and civil disobedience. Her investigations challenge the role of creator and creation, the ethics of the postnatural product and the neoliberal promises of science and technology. This pursuit has led her through many modes of exploration: from tropical rainforest research to documentary films that capture the motivations and philosophies of biotinkerers such as herself. Maggic’s most recent project generates DIY protocols for hacking estrogen, demonstrating its biopolitical ubiquity and potential for mutagenesis, i.e. gender-hacking. She holds a Bachelor of Science and Art (BSA) in Biological Sciences and Art from Carnegie Mellon University and is currently pursuing her masters in Media Arts and Sciences at MIT Media Lab, Design Fiction research group.
http://www.maggic.ooo/a-b-o-u-t