The Creative Writing Program and the Department of English present TOXI-City. This film is a combinatory narrative by Roderick Coover, Professor of Digital Culture in the Department of Linguistic, Literary, and Aesthetic Studies at the University of Bergen, and Scott Rettberg, Director of the Graduate Program in Film and Media Arts at Temple University.
The project imagines life in the Delaware River Estuary in a near future environment impacted by hurricanes, flooding, and widespread seepage of toxic chemicals in major population centers. The film asks what would happen if climate change resulted in storms and changes to our waterways that resulted in the release of the many poisonous substances from Superfund sites and abandoned factories in the area into Philadelphia and New Jersey. Characters describe a struggle to conduct everyday life in a world transformed by environmental devastation and society’s reaction to it. The fictional narrative fragments recombine with a chorus of contemporary voices describing factual deaths caused by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The imagery based on original footage – most shot from a kayak – of the industrial docklands that stretch from Wilmington to Trenton to include the cities and environs of Chester, Philadelphia, and Camden.