Wednesday, January 05, 2005

consider the miserable life of the pig, update




Consider Pig City:
Three years ago, Rotterdam-based architects bureau MVRDV imagined a pig city to change farming production and solve problems such as swine fever and foot and mouth disease. Their idea was to give more space to pigs, letting them live in huge and comfy skyscrapers. Balconies allow the animals to rummage around under trees, an abattoir is housed in the plinth, and animals for slaughter are moved in lifts. There's even a fish farm that supplies some of the food needed. If pigs are kept in stacked "apartments" in such a way that they enjoy better conditions, the meat tastes better, livestock transport becomes unnecessary, diseases are eliminated, and the Netherlands (European Union's leading exporter) acquires more space, according to the architects.

The We Make Money Not Art blog entry includes link to MVRDV's interesting pig movie.

Gravity's Rainbow p. 555:
William must have been waiting for the one pig that wouldn't die, that would validate all the ones who'd had to, all his Gadarene swine who'd rushed into extinction like lemmings, possessed not by demons but by trust for men, which the men kept betraying … possessed by innocence they couldn't lose … by faith in William as another variety of pig, at home with the Earth, sharing the same gift of life.…