Various dietary restrictions are historically associated with human culture and civilization. In addition, millions suffer from eating disorders that have both pathological and cultural origins.
Widespread concern about food safety has been exacerbated by the introduction of genetically modified crops and questionable practices of world agro-business. Meanwhile, many common organic foods are naturally poisonous and can cause illness and death if handled or prepared improperly. The most poisonous food imaginable is, of course, the forbidden fruit of the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil". The ongoing catastrophic and bloody conflict between wisdom and knowledge has decimated humanity and many of its intellectual and cultural treasures. As a project in art and science, an international consortium has been organized to sequence the genome of Malus sieversii, a wlid apple from central Asia recently shown to be the ancestor of all domestic cultivars. A project to modify the Malus sieversii genome with a compressed version of Wikipedia is now underway. Malus ecclesia (Wikipedia-modified M. sieversii) will be planted in herpetaria and several other sculptural/architectural contexts internationally.
Speakers: Joe Davis