FRESH 2.0 is a video expressly designed for screening on an urban screen. Street passerby view a series of landscape elements that stream by in a jumbled collage. All of the imagery comes from the artist’s database of nature imagery appropriated from the labels of popular brands of bottled water. The generic snow-capped mountains and gushing waterfalls seem oddly familiar. Stripped of their bar codes and corporate logos, the mountains and waterfalls are curious symbols for a product that is proven to have harmful effects on the environment.
The purpose of FRESH 2.0 is to raise awareness about the perils of the bottled water industry in countries that have access to high quality tap water. While public water is virtually cost-free, bottled water costs more than gasoline. Worse, the manufacturing process has a rather large carbon footprint. Although water is indeed a healthy beverage choice for humans, the bottled variety is undisputedly damaging for the environment.
This work was created as part of Visual Foreign Correspondents - a monthly series of audiovisual artworks for the public screen and online, relating to The Globalised Crystal Ball, an international debating program in De Balie, Amsterdam. Distinguished artists from around the world are invited to give their personal visual commentary on events and situations from their local perspective.