Jennifer Morone
Factory farming: slaughterhouse
Cardboard and metal
„Beef, it’s what’s for dinner“, the advertising slogan that entered the American household in 1992 helping to bring meat to the dinner table everyday, and soon for every meal.
Our taste for flesh has reaped the surface of the earth in order to feed the animals that reach our plates. The success of industrialized farming practices has enabled populations to grow and corporations to thrive. We come together to share moments over a meal. Food and the culinary tradition is relevant and unique in every home, for some it is home.
Following model #1 : Chicken Layer Farm, I took a closer look into the industrialization of food production in the western world through the inside of a slaughterhouse. To satisfy our level of consumption in this world made up of mass production we’ve resorted to Fordian assembly lines complete with killing and torture devices to maximize the efficiency of disassembling an animal. The structures built and the conditions endured contrast so deeply to the comforting ideal of a shared meal in the warmth of home.
“What makes it fascinating are the machines and the sense of what’s doable, the human spirit of invention and organization, even at close quarters with horror and insensitivity.” Nikolaus Geyrhalter, director of ‘Our Daily Bread’ 2005
With this piece what intrigued me is the relatively low imagery available as to what a slaughterhouse as a whole looks like. Since they are frequently under fire as to the conditions and practices involved inside, many have shut their doors to the public.
Through pieced together images and video I have attempted to construct this extinguishing rollercoaster of life, filling in the blanks with fantasy and imagination.
Some video clips to play:
1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bps-xbo8wnA – The Simpsons
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcacLHjw6PA – Our Daily Bread
3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL2HZBJ37m0 – Our Daily Bread
4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcwBH-WnlhM – Robert Wyatt „Pigs“
