01_ButterInTheMail_lettuce.jpg

Butter in the Mail: Experiments in an Epistolary Economy

By Szu-Han Ho and Jesse Vogler

Beginning in 1914 the Post Office Department of the United States initiated a little known and short-lived program to ship farm produce directly from rural producers to urban consumers through the mechanisms of the postal system. Promoted as the Farm-to-Table (FTT) Plan, this program sought to enmesh the protocols of agricultural production with the convenience of a daily delivery system. At once a plan to manage excess within the economy of farming and an effort to spark rural commerce, the FTT fundamentally relied on a system of equivalences which was at the core of postal maneuverings. As every household was formatted within a grid of equal addressability, it was a short leap to conceptualize producers and consumers as mere variables in the postal matrix—with each as near-at-hand as the corner store. With the local postmaster soliciting information on goods and pricing from farmers along rural delivery routes and disseminating this information through posted advertisements, published brochures, or bulk mailings, all that remained was for shoppers to mail their order through the local post office and await delivery of farm-fresh foodstuffs at their doorstep. The promise of this schema was that farming, infrastructure, and communication could be collapsed into a seamless system of exchange. What resulted was the nascent promise of an epistolary economy, where agricultural protocols and delivery infrastructures were married through the logistics of the postal system.

 

Szu-Han Ho is an artist whose work and research looks at economic language and public sentiment.

 

Jesse Vogler’s work and teaching investigates the territorial and geographic ambitions of architecture.

BRACKET [on farming]

Down on the Body Farm

Down on the Body Farm

By Rod Werner
Factory-Farmed Architecture: You Are How You Eat

Factory-Farmed Architecture: You Are How You Eat

By Edward Dodington
AGER-AGRI

AGER-AGRI

By CTRLZ Architectures (Francesco Cingolani And Massimo Lombardi)
Microcosmic Aquaculture

Microcosmic Aquaculture

By Bittertang (Antonio Torres And Michael Loverich)
GEOtube: Vertical Salt Deposit Growth System

GEOtube: Vertical Salt Deposit Growth System

By Faulders Studio
Post-Agricultural Speculations

Post-Agricultural Speculations

By Jeffrey L. Day, FACT
Aquaculture Seascape Park

Aquaculture Seascape Park

By Moira Wilson
Cash Crops, Energy Landscapes

Cash Crops, Energy Landscapes

By Jason Sowell
Farming [PARK]: Rail, Roadways, and Urban Form Today

Farming [PARK]: Rail, Roadways, and Urban Form Today

By Austin Nicholas Tragni
Migrational Fields: Farming and the Chinese Urban Village

Migrational Fields: Farming and the Chinese Urban Village

By Neeraj Bhatia, Marissa Cheng, Elizabeth Nguyen, Liu Peng, Yang Jiang
Farm Plus: Hybrid Agricultural Landscapes

Farm Plus: Hybrid Agricultural Landscapes

By Ellen Burke
45°50’8”N 119°41’57”W: Hybrid-Poplar Farm

45°50’8”N 119°41’57”W: Hybrid-Poplar Farm

By Ryan Lingard
Beyond Disney

Beyond Disney

By Daniel Kariko , John Raulerson
Learning from Salinas (Hopefully)

Learning from Salinas (Hopefully)

By Bryan Boyer
Seasoned Pasture: A Demonstration Range and Public Park

Seasoned Pasture: A Demonstration Range and Public Park

By Nick Glase
Living Tower: A Vertical Horse Stable for Luxor

Living Tower: A Vertical Horse Stable for Luxor

By Dimitris Argyros
Landgrab City

Landgrab City

By Joseph Grima, Jeffrey Johnson, José Esparza
Cloud Skippers

Cloud Skippers

By Studio Lindfors (Ostap Rudakevych And Gretchen Stump)
Globalgaelisation

Globalgaelisation

By Atelier Eem (Marc Blume, Estelle Nicod, And Francesca Liggieri)
Hydrating Luanda

Hydrating Luanda

By Stephen Becker , Rob Holmes
Next page » Loading