The wildest thing onscreen in New York tonight is unquestionably pFARM (2002). It’s occasionally a manifesto, a prank, performance art, a sci-fi sketch, a documentary, and a fetish film, all centered around a working farm/art collective/“organic biotech company” based in Woodstock, NY. Led by “bio-artist” Adam Zaretsky, this gang of merry kinksters in eroticized PPE till their fields wearing ball gags and strap-ons during the day and at night try to engineer bioweapons that will compel victims to develop sexual fetishes, among many, many other initiatives. For lighter fun, they table at Woodstock flea markets selling eggplants labeled “Unconventional Cucumbers, $400” and handing out free sunflowers. The project parodies, in appropriately unequal measure, biotech anxiety and the biotech industrial complex itself, deliriously suggesting uncomfortable questions at the root of daily existence: What am I eating? Why does that turn me on? What’s happening to my body? Does humanity have a future?
In footage taken from some sort of live lecture—the film has heroically little interest in context—Zaretsky informs viewers that he’s hunting for the genes that underlie fetishism and submissiveness, but to do that he needs the community to contribute samples of skin and mucus. When a flea market shopper refuses his pitch by saying she wants to “hold on to” her DNA, he tells her the project benefits both “human health” and “Homeland Security.” The film never puts too fine a point on it, but central to both BDSM and biotech are concerns relating to power and consent. Here, the fetishists clearly have the moral high ground. There’s no question of Zaretsky’s enthusiasm when his dom forces suction tubing down his throat to collect gastric acid. His ecstatic gurgling during the procedure makes clear that autonomy doesn’t derive from a surfeit of options in the produce aisle.
The above descriptions have “not for the faint of heart” shouting from between the lines, but an underlying sweetness keeps the film from fully alienating sensitive stomachs. We see this ingratiating quality in footage of the gang confronting the denizens of Woodstock. Young and old, male and female, they mostly giggle and banter with the team selling, among other concoctions, a “fetish-powered herbal pest control” called Buggerfux. Zaretsky giddily repeats the profane tell-off he receives after unsuccessfully offering one man a sunflower, and it’s clear antagonizing the squares excites him on some level. But the moment is overwhelmed by dozens of other bemused responses from a public who seem tickled that such freaks exist in their backyard. They appear comfortable with Zaretsky’s put on, and either sign up to donate a nasal swab or decline with a cheeky smirk. Whether or not they consider the full radical implications of the project or not, we can’t know, but they express openness to being charmed by the transgressive. In any case, they aren’t invited to the farm later when a naked woman is locked in an aseptic isolator and slathered in tomato sauce and peanut butter.
pFARM screens tonight, August 4, and throughout the month, at Spectacle.
