Dairy Does Data – in conversation with affect lab about waiting_for_cows
Argentina 4, Margot 104, and Robina 117 are cows. They are also the protagonists of the waiting_for_cows project by affect lab, on display at the Sensing Otherness exhibition on view at MU Hybrid Art House. Julija Zagurskytė talks to the directors of affect lab, Klasien van de Zandschulp and Dr. Natalie Dixon, about empathy, alienation and reconnecting with the other.
The trio of dairy cows, starring in affect labs work, is not aware of the race for automation in the agricultural industry. They’re oblivious to their role in the Key Performance Indicators (a quantifiable indicator of progress or production) of the farm on which the livelihoods of their caretakers are staked. They don’t know that Greenpeace won a case against the Dutch State to halve nitrogen production throughout the country by 2030 which will affect dairy cows like them. In their world, they eat, sleep, ruminate, and produce milk.
A video of a screen recording plays on an iPad displaying an app used to track data on a dairy farm. Charts and tables of numbers change as a disembodied touch scrolls through projections and graphs and KPI’s. On the opposite wall, yellow stickers representing farm paraphernalia are placed in a rough timeline informing viewers of the progression of farm tools. From milk containers and ear clipping techniques from the 1880’s to the DNA analysis tools and collars around the animal’s necks.
On the wall behind the viewer, a projection of a short, touching video documentary about a dairy farm in Friesland run by Fokke Terpstra and his family, is shown. Creative director of affect lab, Klasien van de Zandschulp, tells me how she also grew up on a dairy farm. ‘The fascination between art and technology has always been around, but also the relation between animals and technology, how they intertwine and indeed the sensing of otherness, which also plays a big part in this exhibition.’
In the video, Terpstra talks about the history of the farm, how it has changed, and how he feels about the more unsavoury parts of the work such as sending away cows. With a stony face of reason and calm demeanour he lets us know that ‘these are the difficult decisions one has to make when you run a farm’ and ‘that it is either you or them.’ But slowly his poise breaks and with a teary look he reveals that sometimes he gets ‘angry at the cows’ for becoming ill and for having to leave. The sanctity of the tradition of agricultural production reveals itself at this moment. The carer who is responsible for that which nourishes him, feels truly connected to the animals. He protects and serves them every day, in turn, they do the same. However, the data driven rationale of modern technology feels none of the same emotional responsibility, and yet, arguably it also takes care of the cows.
The main installation is shown on the opposite wall, where data which records the cows’ well-being from the sensors on their necks scrolls at the bottom of the screen, in yellow letters and in near real timing.
235 Margot
Rumination: 50 minutes (last two hours) Past day: 619 minutes
Date: 2024/12/16T08:00:00
On and on…
The data from Argentina, Margot, and Robina who live on Terpstra’s farm, drives the projections on the farthest wall at this exhibition. Long shots of jaws crunching, muscles flexing, soft teats, long eyelashes, and swaying tails make up the ‘interactive’ component of the work which is all conducted by the cow’s condition. But how interactive is this really? After all, all the museumgoer can do is sit and wait for the art to emerge – from the cow.
In a conversation with the artists, it was made clear that the spirit in which the affect lab studio creates work is by understanding that ‘art follows biography.’ Natalie Dixon, explains: ‘Whether it’s the other, as in the radicalised other, the technological other, the animal other – I’ve always been interested in how otherness comes to being; to light; emerges.’
The first collaborations between Dixon and Van de Zandschulp that sparked affect lab to become a more deliberate creative studio was the 2019 Good Neighbours project, which used immersive storytelling techniques to simulate a neighbourhood. The viewer walks through a community while talking to the ‘others’ through a WhatsApp group chat where fictional members of the neighbourhood are interacting with the participant. The goal of Good Neighbours was to spark more nuanced conversations about community amidst the rise of surveillance technologies.
Since then, affect lab has grown from two dedicated artists to a team of four with many collaborators. The broader body of work of the studio consistently tackles the divide between humanness/feeling and rationality/data. Projects like Ctrl.Alt.Img (2023) confront issues such as the misclassification and underrepresentation that arise when generative AI lacks inclusive visual data.
Waiting_for_cows brings the methods of the studio to agricultural discussions. How do we find a middle ground in heated discussions about farming in the Netherlands, when there is no middle ground because there is no discussion? Affect lab’s work poses these questions effectively, blending research, technology, and art to open up avenues for dialogue and exploration.
But apparently not all feel moved towards discussion. When the large mass of an animal on screen looms over the viewer, it recalls an anecdote shared by the duo: ‘After a viewing of waiting_for_cows and a keynote by Klasien at the zoo, a man in the front row told us how uncomfortable he felt while looking at a cow’s udders. This up closeness of the teats of the cow is intimate and fleshy. Even when a cow is sitting in its box doing nothing, it’s producing. It’s chewing and ruminating,’ Dixon explains.
The soft, pink presence, staring level with the viewer, combined with the overarching experience of watching the life of an animal, proved too much for them. Dixon: ‘There is something very interesting happening on these farms that goes even beyond the spatial and choreographic moments. We felt a power being exerted on this space. We couldn’t yet articulate what it was like. It felt like forces were shaping certain dynamics on the farm, but we couldn’t figure it out quite yet. And then through the next three years, we started feeling and understanding that a little bit more.’ When asking if they have yet figured out what this feeling is, Dixon explains that this exhibition helped to make things more clear. ‘Being on the farm through the filming, was like an ontological mirror. It’s a reflection of how we are as humans. The cows are quantified. They are made into productivity units. They are measured. They are assessed for their efficiency and productivity. But this is also the human condition, that is why we feel unease.’
Van de Zandschulp adds that the example of the man also makes the issue more complex. ‘In the video you see how the farmer connects to the cows and there are moments of care there. But maybe I see it this way because I used to be a farmer. For Natalie it’s different and it therefore affects how we discuss these topics with each other.’
This man’s reaction underscores a broader disconnect – a removal not just from the processes that create our food but from empathising with other forms of existence. As Dixon and Van de Zandschulp go on to say that the Anthropocene’s framing of humanity as the centre of reality and the driver of influence has not served the natural world – or humanity – well. With waiting_for_cows, they aim to flip this script because in this installation it is us who are waiting for the animals. What we are waiting for is not entirely clear, but it is clear that in this moment we are dependent on this being. A hierarchy shifts. The datafication of the animals is just one way that we’ve both been estranged from the animal, yet, in the quantification of its productive value we see ourselves reflected.
The MU exhibition as a whole thrives on this recalibration of perspectives. In a field where technology often only gazes at itself, the works here use technology to unearth hidden narratives. For example, Xandra van der Eijk’s Mother of Pearl (2024) – a room filled with lit and hanging oyster shells – demands slow, introspective engagement, contrasting with the immediacy of other installations. Just outside the waiting_for_cows room, Herwig Ilegems’ video work, Head to Head, plays on a loop. In it, the artist offers his head to large animals – owls, ostriches, water buffalos – allowing them to rest their foreheads against his in an act of quiet intimacy. Absurd yet profoundly moving, the piece complements the themes explored in waiting_for_cows, reinforcing the importance of shared space and mutual recognition between species.
Waiting_for_cows is more than a meditation on the relationship between humans, animals, and technology. It’s a quiet call to action – a nudge to reconnect with the systems we have abstracted into efficiency and convenience, to recognise the lives entangled within them, whether bovine or human.
Affect lab’s ability to merge art, research, and technology into compelling narratives is what makes their work resonate. They don’t merely document; they reframe perspectives, challenge norms, and provoke dialogue. As visitors leave the exhibition, they carry with them not just images of swaying tails or crunching jaws but also an altered perspective. Having sat in a room, simply waiting for cows.
The exhibition Sensing Otherness / Navigating the more-than-human world is on view until the 16th of March at MU Hybrid Art House
On the 6th of March there will be a conversation around waiting_for_cows at MU
Julija Zagurskytė
works as a Junior UX writer for a tech company in Amsterdam and recently completed both a Bachelors and Masters thesis on the topics of AI generated images and AI art; in other words she writes and she writes and she writes.
