ABSTRACT
The following conversation on agriculture in the Anthropocene is inspired by an artwork, or series of artworks, Maria Michails created from the years 2008 to 2015. S.OIL (2012) is a human-powered interactive installation that reflects on the history of industrialization and energy use in relation to farming, biofuels, water quality, and topsoil erosion. Mechanical and electronic systems are combined with living plants (experimental perennial food crops) and video. The installation entrusts visitors with operating a railway handcar to power an electronically controlled irrigation system to water the plants and the video monitors for viewing a contrasting video of corn growing and processing. Borrowing simultaneously from the Earth's living systems and industrial processes, the installation creates a space that is part laboratory, part factory, and part farm. The following dialogue was realized as a string of e-mail threads surrounding three central questions.
