Research and Concept: Gut++ (Alex Foradori, Bianca Schick, Erik Campanini)
Script and Scenography: Bianca Schick, Alex Foradori
Video and Animation: Alex Foradori
Sound design: Erik Campanini
Creative coding:
Michele Leonardi
Are the apples that we buy in our supermarkets as perfect as they look? How can art-horror trouble the assumptions of beauty, “nature”,
“natural”, and “perfection” that we cling to?
Agribusinesses are sites of violent rupture and one of the most outstanding examples of the contemporary extractive economy: an abused resource for exploitation, domination, and domestication. The “Green Revolution’’ has allowed monocultural production to be deployed globally in the name of food security. Simultaneously, it led to an era of unsustainable practices that remove, rearrange and exhaust the environment, exposing people to dangerous chemicals (Arboleda, 2020; Brooks Keeve, 2020; Chiesa, 2021; Dunlap and Jakobsen, 2020; Haraway et. al., 2019).
The project is an explorative narrative-driven website that aims to scrutinise the apple industry around Trentino-Alto Adige (Northern Italy). Here, large fields of apple trees appear never-ending, revealing linear grids marked by human extractions. The sea of apple cultivation is interrupted by an array of polished agricultural factories, promising growth and prosperity. Technologically advanced machinery is feeding the fruits that grow, accelerated by fertiliser. Behind the scenes, the scientific community is racing to design the perfect apple, crisp and juicy, never-ageing.
Following the apple supply chain (from the harvest to the consumer), we aim to reveal modes of production and corporate strategies that hide behind the image of tourism that keeps painting this region and its plantations as untouched “apple paradise”. Further, the website displays these highly regulated, unnatural production rhythms that are responsible for structuring both human and non-human bodies.
By blending reality with our personal fiction, ‘Techno Apple Superstar’ depicts a dystopian landscape inside a digestive system, a machine producing false ideas of perfection. It assembles representations of different actors of the industry towards a monstrous figuration and critically examines the ideology behind the desire for spotless, beautiful apples. Further, it dramatises the almost religious belief in perfection and abstraction of life.
The project will be online soon.
In the meantime, below you can view some extract from the video game.
Bibliography:
Chiesa, E. (2021) Conosciamo l’agroecologia. Available at: https://falacosagiustatrento.org/blog/2021/04/16/conosciamo-lagroecologia/ (Accessed 13 January 2022).
Brooks Keeve C. (2020) ‘Fugitive Seeds’, Edge Effects, Center for Culture, History, and Environment (CHE). Available at: https://edgeeffects.net/fugitive-seeds/ (Accessed: 16 January 2022).
Arboleda, M. (2020) Planetary Mine. Territories of Extraction under Late Capitalism. London: Verso.
Dunlap, A and Jakobsen, J. (2020) The Violent Technologies of Extraction. Political ecology, critical agrarian studies and the capitalist worldeater. Switzerland: Palgrave Mcmillan.
Haraway D., Tsing, A. and Mitman G. (2019) ‘Reflections on the Plantationocene.’ [Online]. Available at: https://edgeeffects.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/PlantationoceneReflections_Haraway_Tsing.pdf (Accessed 17 January 2022).
DeMeyer, J. (2013) ‘APPLE-PRODUCING FAMILY FARMS IN SOUTH TYROL: SOLINSA SHOW CASE REPORT FAO.’ Available at: http://www.solinsa.net/ (Accessed 12 November 2021).
“natural”, and “perfection” that we cling to?
Agribusinesses are sites of violent rupture and one of the most outstanding examples of the contemporary extractive economy: an abused resource for exploitation, domination, and domestication. The “Green Revolution’’ has allowed monocultural production to be deployed globally in the name of food security. Simultaneously, it led to an era of unsustainable practices that remove, rearrange and exhaust the environment, exposing people to dangerous chemicals (Arboleda, 2020; Brooks Keeve, 2020; Chiesa, 2021; Dunlap and Jakobsen, 2020; Haraway et. al., 2019).
The project is an explorative narrative-driven website that aims to scrutinise the apple industry around Trentino-Alto Adige (Northern Italy). Here, large fields of apple trees appear never-ending, revealing linear grids marked by human extractions. The sea of apple cultivation is interrupted by an array of polished agricultural factories, promising growth and prosperity. Technologically advanced machinery is feeding the fruits that grow, accelerated by fertiliser. Behind the scenes, the scientific community is racing to design the perfect apple, crisp and juicy, never-ageing.
Following the apple supply chain (from the harvest to the consumer), we aim to reveal modes of production and corporate strategies that hide behind the image of tourism that keeps painting this region and its plantations as untouched “apple paradise”. Further, the website displays these highly regulated, unnatural production rhythms that are responsible for structuring both human and non-human bodies.
By blending reality with our personal fiction, ‘Techno Apple Superstar’ depicts a dystopian landscape inside a digestive system, a machine producing false ideas of perfection. It assembles representations of different actors of the industry towards a monstrous figuration and critically examines the ideology behind the desire for spotless, beautiful apples. Further, it dramatises the almost religious belief in perfection and abstraction of life.
The project will be online soon.
In the meantime, below you can view some extract from the video game.
Bibliography:
Chiesa, E. (2021) Conosciamo l’agroecologia. Available at: https://falacosagiustatrento.org/blog/2021/04/16/conosciamo-lagroecologia/ (Accessed 13 January 2022).
Brooks Keeve C. (2020) ‘Fugitive Seeds’, Edge Effects, Center for Culture, History, and Environment (CHE). Available at: https://edgeeffects.net/fugitive-seeds/ (Accessed: 16 January 2022).
Arboleda, M. (2020) Planetary Mine. Territories of Extraction under Late Capitalism. London: Verso.
Dunlap, A and Jakobsen, J. (2020) The Violent Technologies of Extraction. Political ecology, critical agrarian studies and the capitalist worldeater. Switzerland: Palgrave Mcmillan.
Haraway D., Tsing, A. and Mitman G. (2019) ‘Reflections on the Plantationocene.’ [Online]. Available at: https://edgeeffects.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/PlantationoceneReflections_Haraway_Tsing.pdf (Accessed 17 January 2022).
DeMeyer, J. (2013) ‘APPLE-PRODUCING FAMILY FARMS IN SOUTH TYROL: SOLINSA SHOW CASE REPORT FAO.’ Available at: http://www.solinsa.net/ (Accessed 12 November 2021).
As a player, you click through video collages, music videos, and text-based narrations. As the narrative unfolds, the extractive monster of apple monoculture and its mighty activities are revealed to you.
Stay alert because apple stories are catchy, but in fact, they can suddenly turn over and become their exact opposite: fertility becomes toxicity, remedy becomes poison, beauty becomes shit.
Documentation of landscape through Drone images (3D models) and
photogrammetry:
