Biophilic Experience: Meat Consumption

Created by: Sam De Armas and Dror Margalit

Humans, like any other animals, have to eat to survive. And with millions of species fighting for survival, it is no surprise that our animalistic nature drove us to the top of the food chain. But as the species that dominate major parts of the food chain, we must ask ourselves: have we gone too far?

With our project, we want to explore different aspects of meat consumption in today’s society. From animal cruelty to the environmental toll that it takes on the planet, there is no doubt that we can improve life on earth if we eat less meat. Thus, we want to create an experience where people can empathize with animals who were born into the meat industry’s reality, as well as make connections between meat consumption to environmental damage.

Photo by Brett Sayles (Pexel)

Although a large component of meat consumption contains violent, triggering images, we will avoid showing this side of it. We will also avoid telling people that meat consumption is wrong or making them feel bad about it. That is because we believe that meat consumption, in many cases, is tied to culture or can have health benefits in places where alternatives are not available. Instead, we chose to focus on approaches that evoke empathy and hopefulness, offering people a new perspective on this subject.

As of now, we have two main options for our experience. First, we are considering presenting the life of a pig through the lens of what a human might think of as an unhappy life. For example:

1. Wake up in a small studio apartment

2. Brush teeth in a dim lit bathroom

   1. Almost empty toothpaste

3. Sit at a bus stop / riding the bus (very crowded)

4. Enter the office

5. Sitting doing paperwork

   1. Pen runs out of ink / computer frozen

6. Lunch break / water cooler

7. Finish work

   1. Printer runs out of paper / angry boss

8. Go home (bus ride?/rain)

9. Eat microwave dinner

   1. Looks completely different from the picture

10. Go to sleep

    1. Loud noises coming from outside

The second approach we are considering takes an environmental impact lens. For that, we are thinking of creating a VR/ game experience where participants experience the life of an animal (e.gpig) in their environment. As they interact with the game, the environment around them is ruined.

Game version:

1. First scene is an intro/welcome page

   1. Click with a mouse?

2. The view is a farm on the bottom and the top is a city view or forest

3. Player clicks on animal

4. Causes buildings to be covered in plants / forest starts to die

5. Game over is when all animals have been clicked

   1. It’ll full screen to the destroyed scene

VR version

1. Still a dining table for the installation / vr headset in place or on top of a plate

2. When you place the headset the viewer is sitting in a table in the middle of a bunch of pigs (in mud)

3. Then the city view appears

4. Make it so it’s obvious that you need to click on the pigs to progress

5. Hopefully the outcome is they either stop because they feel bad for the pigs

   1. Or they finish but realize the damage they have done

Inspiration:

McDonald’s Game

Stardew Valley Intro https://futuryst.blogspot.com/2011/06/posthuman-cities.html