Project One Idea - Christopher Spach

For this project, I want to focus on the concept of in vitro meat (AKA cultured meat). Scientists are working on creating meat in laboratories without the use of animals. The first in vitro beef burger was created by a Dutch team in 2013. 

While it is currently very expensive, cultured meat is expected to one day compete with traditionally obtained meat. Many consider this preferable to the current system, considering the awful condition of the factory farms that produce almost all of our meat.

However, I imagine that if this product is introduced, there will be a backlash from both meat-eaters and vegetarians. This type of meat may be criticized as unnatural, harmful to American farmers or just missing the point. 

Although most vegetarian groups have praised in vitro meat as a key to ending factory farming, others have claimed that the in vitro beef burger produced in 2013 was not truly vegetarian, as fetal calf serum was used in the growth medium.

In order to explore this topic's many angles, I plan to focus not on a conditional future, but a conditional past. Our present is also the future of the past. With my project, I want to pose the question, "What would the world be like now if in vitro meat had existed in the past?"

In order to do this, I plan to create several posters and advertisements in the style of those from the 1960s. In that time period, ads said exactly what they wanted to say, no matter how sexist or propaganda-laden. 

Using this medium, I hope I will be able to create an interesting exploration of a subject that we will most likely be hearing more about in the future.