Sow Farm (near Libbey, Oklahoma), 2009 is an intricately detailed virtual representation of a large pig production facility in the Great Southern Plains region of the United States. A viewer-controlled camera permits oversight by the work's audience. Circling the scene at their command, it unflinchingly surveys vast lakes of excrement sparkling in the sun while squat computer-controlled silos relentlessly pump nitrogen-derived corn feed.

The sun is the universal regulator of time, but we are now becoming dependent on historical sunlight in the form of fixed nitrogen. Nitrogen is naturally unfixed and cannot be used to fertilize with. The Harber-Bosch process, which is a military technology, creates nitrogen for explosives, enabling fixed nitrogen to now be used for agricultural purposes. Sow farm is not a naturally fertile area, yet by the use of buried sunlight, where oil is the supplementary element, it powers the fixing of nitrogen.

Within the work, a fleet of trucks will arrive, synced with a twenty-one week gestation period for the pigs to silently remove and replace the occupants. As in life, a blazing sun relentlessly circles in a 12-month orbit of its own. The work was subsequently constructed over a period of a year using 3D modelling and Realtime 3D, a format more commonly associated with the gaming industry.

Vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/183307102