Grow Finish Unit (near Elkhart, Kansas), 2008
Realtime 3D projection, 4.5m x 6m
'Grow Finish Unit (near Elkhart, Kansas) 2008' is an intricately detailed virtual representation of a large pig production facility in the Great Southern Plains region of the United States.
Its appearance documents a horrifyingly functional agricultural reality and illustrates both a contemporary denial of animal dignity and the reduction of contract between farmer and farmed to a purely technical, almost contactless process. A viewer-controlled camera permits oversight by the work's audience. Circling the scene at their command, it unflinchingly surveys vast lakes of excrementsparkling in the sun while squat computer-controlled silos relentlessly pump nitrogen-derived corn feed.
The finish of the title is represented by a 6-8 month orbit of exchange in the work – a fleet of trucks will arrive at some designed but unscripted point to silently remove and replace the occupants. As in life, a blazing sun relentlessly circles in a 12-month orbit of its own.
Production: Werner Poetzelberger. Modelling: Daniel Fellsner. Programming: Helmut Bressler. Presentation design / Corian fabrication: Jakob Illera / Inseq, Vienna.
