Greenhouse 26, Paddock Wood, Kent

There is a village located between Birchington and Tonbridge called Paddock Wood. The seclusion of the village results in its having clean air and being one of the best places for agricultural research. Hence, the remote landscape is marked by installations of technological and scientific equipment and 91 hectars of greenhouses creating a perfect, uniform rhythm of transparent low white structures on the brow of the hills

The greenhouses are filled with mist, their poly glass roofs shining like tinplate. Plants displaying fine silver hair are growing in their millions in trays of nutrient-enriched water inside the heated, artificially lit, spare and somewhat clinical spaces. The crops are suspended from the 8m ceiling in huge hydroponic rows, their roots never touching the chalky Kent soil beneath.

A bleak yet beautiful site. A biological brave new world where an iridescent liquid containing structurally unique pigments is farmed. A liquid that can only be detected by advanced optical readers. One that is unique and that, once it has been applied to a mobile phone, laptop, television or other chosen personal items, tags them with a numerical structural code that is logged onto a database and referenced to a particular individual, making the tracking of the objects true ownership and history possible.

Excerpt from Plant Fiction by Troika. Now showing at the Science Museum, London.