The Feeders

RESEARCH STATEMENT 

The Feeders is a creative and critical research project by the art collective “The End of Us”. This audio-visual essay emerges as a cinematic study of narratives with the aim to reconfigure our collective imagination around waste, survival and transformation. Our research links technological methods with poetic inquiry to rearticulate embedded socio-economic paradigms and themes of ecological degradation. The project investigates the biological capabilities of Zophobas Morio, more commonly known as superworm. These larvae of the darkling beetle are often used as feeder insects for lizards and other pets, but have the extremely rare ability to digest polystyrene, aka Styrofoam or Icopor. This synthetic aromatic hydrocarbon polymer is synthesized by free radical polymerization of styrene monomer and is non-biodegradable. It can take hundreds or even thousands of years to decompose in a landfill. The superworm’s ability to render toxic waste into digestible food not only twists conventional understandings of waste but also acts as a metaphor for the reconsideration of systems under pressure.

The film records, through audio, the sonic landscape created in the digestion of

styrofoam. These recorded soundscapes highlight the process of decay and invite

viewers to listen to the hidden dialogue between waste and renewal. Moreover, the film incorporates an AI object detector surveillance that monitors every movement and interaction of the superworms. Rather than merely illuminating previously unseen behavioural nuances, this watchful lens functions as a metaphorical eye, underscoring how persistent observation can reframe our understanding of the precarious dance of survival and adaptation. By converting raw experimental data to narrative, the film trespasses across borders that separate art from science, and invites viewers to reconsider what will be possible when (again) technology, art and science become a co-joined medium for critical expression in overlapping fields. A conjunction of critical theoretical insights undergirds the film’s conceptual frame. The film is partly a reimagining of cannibalism, drawing on the explorations of Vilém Flusser in Vampyroteuthis Infernalis: A Treatise (1994), with a Report by the Institut Scientifique de Recherche Paranaturaliste. In this text, Flusser invites the reader – by deep studying of the vampire squid, a deep-sea species – to consider how and when conventional systems break down where nature and society might consume themselves to survive. It echoes the situation of the superworms in a cannibalistic behaviour when there is scarcity, reflecting how entities might take on self-consuming strategies in an attempt at preservation. Here, cannibalism is represented not as a biological deviation but as to comment on unsustainable practices underpinning modern patterns of consumption and exploitation.

Simultaneously, the film draws on the critical approach of Simon O’Sullivan (2014) who remarks that art is a propositional process, an act of fiction in which every creation deconstructs linearity through the proposal of other mythologies. By juxtaposing data in real-time through visual and acoustic means, The Feeders is an audio-visual document that aims to shatter established narratives. Additionally, by layering experimental observations with sensory experiences, our film constructs a counter-narrative that questions the dominant discourse surrounding ecological degradation.

Furthermore, the film’s theoretical underpinnings incorporate Reza Negarestani’s

concept of the “( )hole complex”, as articulated in “Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials” (2008). Negarestani’s notion reinterprets the void not as an absence or deficiency but as a dynamic site of transformative potential. Within the film the superworms’ ability to convert inert, toxic styrofoam into a resource is rendered as an embodiment of this idea. The voids, manifested in the spaces of decay within the material, are reimagined as grounds for regeneration, where destructive processes give way to unexpected forms of creation. This perspective reconfigures the dualism in representation in which the void is taken as nothingness, and sets it against the firm premise that the more gaps and fissures in already constructed forms, the more the void will reveal a new kind of order and meaning. The Feeders is at the crossing where art, technology and critical theory meet with another critical lens to probe crises in modern times related to ecological and socio-economic instability. The audio-visual documentation of superworms’ adaptive strategies critiques not only unsustainable practices of consumption underpinning modernity, but also configures those very practices as broader systems of exploitation that, through self-destruction, carry the seeds of their own transformation.

The project is also very much aware of its ethical dimensions. We approach

superworms with respect and responsibility, knowing they are often used in industrial

contexts. The film does not sensationalise or exploit the natural behaviours it documents, but instead seeks to shed light on the resilience of life forms often marginalised within human economies. This ethical commitment underpins the broader critique of exploitation within the film as a whole and challenges the viewer to reflect upon the moral imperatives underlying sustainable and equitable practice. By fusing technologies with theoretical insights—from Flusser’s (1994) exploration of cannibalism as a metaphor for self-consumption to O’Sullivan’s (2014) vision of art as narrative disruption, and Negarestani’s (2008) re-articulation of the void as creative potential—the film opens up avenues for understanding the interplay between survival and exploitation in a world troubled by ecological uncertainty.

The Feeders invites its audience to contemplate beyond established modes of thinking; it calls for a radical reimagining of the natural world and those socio-economic systems governing human life.

PEER REVIEW 1 

This submission is a provocative and well thought-out creative response to human-led ecological disaster. The methodology applies what, at first glance, appears to be traditional expositional scientific documentary. A lab with equipment appears to be set up for an experiment and two scientists gown up in white suits to conduct the experiment. Disembodied “voice of god” narration commences. However, it soon becomes clear that this is a playful or ironic application of the scientific documentary. The music, which commences from the beginning, brings a sense of melancholy, dread or doom about it, setting the emotional tone of the documentary’s themes. The tone of the narration is personal rather than the impersonal delivery in a scientific documentary (unless it is David Attenborough) and appears to be delivered by the filmmaking team. 

The Zophobas Morios worms are the central character of the film. As they chew their way through styrofoam, the narration compares their activity and their ability to turn to cannibalism when food resources run out, to capitalism:  “Whatever it takes, no matter the cost to survive.” The visual combination of the cannibalistic Zophobas Morios, eating their way through one of the most toxic products of contemporary industrialised society, with the narration, as it explores the human condition under capitalism whereby we consume what cannot be replaced, is powerful and effective. The creative approach to the filmmaking supports the central question posed at the end of the piece: How much longer can we keep feeding on what is left as we cannibalise the planet? The research statement articulates and supports the work as practice-led research. 

The research statement that accompanies the film supports the practice as research contention of the submission and provides an enlarged context in which to understand the film’s central interrogation. The film itself lives up to the assertion in the statement that “Our research links technological methods with poetic inquiry to rearticulate embedded socio-economic paradigms and themes of ecological degradation”. The submission does live up to its potential.

The methods applied in the filmmaking (as described previously) support the research statement’s contention that “By converting raw experimental data to narrative, the film trespasses across borders that separate art from science and invites viewers to reconsider what will be possible when (again) technology, art and science become a co-joined medium for critical expression in overlapping fields.”

As described earlier, the playful/ironic use of traditional scientific documentary techniques and the use of the Zophobas Morios worms as a way of critiquing human behaviour under capitalism provides new knowledge and insight.

I have no suggestions for changes. Both the film and the research statement are well executed.

PEER REVIEW 2 

Contextualised by the authors as an audio-visual essay linking technological methods with poetic inquiry, The Feeders is an engaging and technically refined production that appears to draw from traditions of video-documented performance art and science-fiction film tropes. The Feeders explores the narrative potential of a particular insect larvae, Zophobas Morio. By way of the performed experiment and voice-over narration, The Feelers attempts to draw parallels between the larvae’s ability to consume polystyrene, and its potential for cannibalistic behaviour, with the human dilemma of over consumption and ecological destruction. The project proposes an innovative conjunction of art, technology and theory, resulting in a juxtaposition of form that aims to propose an alternate mythology. 

The Feeders is an engaging audio-visual essay which clearly achieves its aims of prompting the viewer to question human consumption trends and our relationship with other biological organisms. The video cleverly draws on science fiction tropes such as laboratory-like staging, hazmat suits, microscope-like close-ups and a discordant droning soundscape. The polyvocal narration is particularly effective in relaying the exposition, offering the sense of a collective speculative narrative. 

Conceptually, I find the theoretical links and metaphors tenuous and unconvincing. Any indication of integrity in the “raw experimental data” appears to be lacking and the various devices alluding to scientific inquiry such as  the lab, hazmat suits and surveillance overlay appear to be superficial. References to Flusser’s (1994) research on vampire squid or Negarestani’s (2008) conceptualisation of the void feel plucked out of curiosity and not aligned with either the Zophobas Morio’s ability to consume one kind of human-produced plastic, polystyrene, nor the human-ecological dilemma of over-consumption. Perhaps the performance and filmmaking could attempt to manifest or realise these ideas rather than simply announce them in narration and written statements. 

Nevertheless, the submission exposes the creative and speculative possibilities of practice-as-research and the ethical dilemmas of cultural mythologising. The Feeders offers an innovative combination of art, technology and theory, but questions of integrity and intent across and between the divergent elements could be more clearly addressed. The work is successfully contextualised within contemporary art practice working through speculative narratives. As an original and expressive audio-visual essay, the work offers new knowledge and experience, but the accuracy and integrity of which remains doubtful in my mind. 

My suggestion would be to limit the discussion in the project statement to aspects of the project that are clearly evident in the creative work. Sources of inspiration can be important to the production process, but they do not necessarily provide a logical justification for the creative work as research. 

RESPONSE TO PEER REVIEWS

Thank you to the reviewers for their reports on our project The Feeders. We appreciate the time and care each reader devoted to the work and the opportunity to clarify our intentions. Your responses help us understand how the project resonates beyond our studio and remind us why an open conversation between creator and reader is valuable. 

To the first reviewer, whose thoughtful comments questioned the relevance of certain theoretical references, we would like to explain why Vilem Flusser’s Vampyroteuthis Infernalis (1994) and Reza Negarestani’s (2008) “( )hole complex” remain central to our thinking. While conceiving the project we were struck by the parallels between the vampire squid and Zophobas Morio: both creatures inhabit stressed environments, both resort to cannibalism when resources run low, and both convert what is otherwise lifeless into nourishment. Flusser’s (1994) speculative meditation on the squid proposes an alternative epistemology grounded in consumption and digestion, a framework we found equally useful for reading the superworm’s metabolism of polystyrene. Negarestani’s (2008) “( )hole complex” complements this by treating cavities not as mere absences but as active sites where matter and meaning are redistributed. The worms’ tunnelling literally enacts this principle, carving voids that become productive spaces filled with their bodies and, metaphorically, with new possibilities. Those two references framed our nonlinear approach to the film, allowing us to mirror large-scale human extraction and consumption with the worms’ micro-scale labour. By situating these concepts alongside the filmed behaviours, we aim to bind theory to what the camera and microphones record rather than letting it float unanchored. Your critique highlights where that bond still feels loose, and we thank you for pressing us to articulate them more clearly. 

To the second reviewer, we are grateful for the generous reading of the work’s tone and structure. Your recognition of the playful inversion of scientific-documentary tropes reassures us that the laboratory mise-en-scène and multi-voiced narration communicate the uneasy dance between empirical inquiry and speculative fiction that we hoped to achieve. Your encouragement motivates us to preserve that balance while tightening prose and clarifying methods. 

The Feeders is a living project, constantly transforming as we test ideas against the aesthetic and as the worms themselves reshape their environment. Thoughtful critiques such as these keep us attentive to the gap between speculation and evidence and spur us to refine how we share our evolving research. Knowing that both reviewers found our material worth discussing motivates us to keep pushing the work forward.

REFERENCES 

Flusser, Vilém. 1994. “Vampyroteuthis Infernalis: A Treatise” with a Report by the Institut Scientifique de Recherche Paranaturaliste. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 

Negarestani, Reza. 2008. Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials. London: Urbanomic.

O’Sullivan, Simon. 2014. "Art Practice as Fictioning: A Manifesto." Journal of Contemporary Art and Culture 2, no. 1: 23–45