
William Morris was a director of the Devon Great Consols during its transition from copper mining to the industrial production of arsenic. the arsenic mined at Devon Great Consols mine was in fact sold to make ‘Scheele’s Green’ - the pigment used in Morris wallpaper. This film explores the dichotomy between the machined beauty of Morris’s prints and the attendant environmental destruction, the lingering, hyperobjective, tracery of the arsenic’s poison on the landscape.
A guided voiceover tour of the game, Elite Dangerous, (the goal of the explorers is to scan different planets for minerals) offers shortcuts to arsenic deposits which are a valuable mineral within the game’s structure. The additional layer of artifice this affords the film, which negotiates accessibility to sites, and their toxic traces, reflects the neo-colonial commodification of landscapes and workers in the production of materials.