Real Milk is based on real-life “smart” dairy farms, where cows milk themselves using milking robots. The cows are said to produce better milk because they set their own schedules. But more autonomy requires more automation.

Real Milk shows multiple intersecting perspectives: the farming systems that guide the cow’s behavior; the cow who is quietly passing through these systems; and the disembodied voice that sells the story of bovine empowerment (and maximum yield).

Each page is composed of interlocking “Wang tiles” that can be endlessly combined without forming any repeating patterns. For decades, Wang tiles and similar graphical systems have been used in video games from Pac-Man to Stardew Valley to draw maps that suggest coherent worlds extending beyond the frame. In Real Milk, the tiles convey the cow’s dream of freedom, and the unseen rules that structure her dream. -Publisher