Product Description

"Delicious crunchy, munchy, and chocolatey cereal. You’ll go cuckoo for the chocolatey milk! Cocoa Puffs are great with milk for breakfast or as an after school sweet treat." 

source: General Mills Website

First, the artist takes six La Croix cans and uses a can opener to pop the top off and scissors to cut them into makeshift plant containers. She does this because she balked at the price of actual small pot containers. 

The artist clears her workspace of the metal debris.  

Self-consciously making sure the COCOA PUFFS logo faces the camera, the artist opens the COCOA PUFFS box. For some reason she takes a little longer than she should opening the box.  She thinks this is probably because she knows other people are going to watch her do this simple task. And judge her. It makes her forget how to open a box. 

Once she gets the box open. She then opens the interior COCOA PUFFS bag. She pours the COCOA PUFFS into a Ziplock container until the gallon Ziplock is full. 

Next she takes a hammer, crushing the COCOA PUFFS inside their Ziplock hell. The hammer is pink. She is sitting on her “porch” which is actually, in point of fact, an accessibility ramp to her apartment.  

The artist has successfully crushed the COCOA PUFFS. Next, she takes the potting soil and begins to use a tablespoon measurement to add potting soil to one of the La Croix cans. She uses a sharpie and some tape to mark this can as the 0% can. Meaning there is 0% COCOA PUFFS in that one. Just potting soil.  

Again, she has ladled out potting soil, but this time mixes in some crushed COCOA PUFFS, for this can at a 20% ratio. A ratio she also marks down. 

She does this until she has six cans at 0% COCOA PUFFS, 20% COCOA PUFFS, 40% COCOA PUFFS, 60% COCOA PUFFS, 80% COCOA PUFFS, and 100% COCOA PUFFS. In each of these she has planted two bean seeds.  

She arranges the cans in order. 

It doesn’t take too long before 0% COCOA PUFFS pops up through the potting soil. Two little bean sprouts uncurling.  

0% begins to grow rapidly. 20% also begins poking their little heads out. No other seeds have sprouted, but 100% has grown a crusty hard-shell layer from the combination of sugar and water. 

As the days progress, 0% continues to grow steadily. 20% looks slightly sickly but is also growing. For a little while it seems like 40% might sprout, but a mold is slowly taking over many of the cans, especially 40%, 60%, and 80%. 

If the artist puts her nose right up to the growing site, she can smell the mold. It’s not the most pleasant of smells, but she allows the experiment to continue.  

The artist, in case you can’t tell, does not have roommates or a lover. Sometimes she gets lonely.  The sprouts in 0% and 20% are well on their way. The sprouts are rather cheerful, but the artist grows fond of the mold.  

Three weeks have passed and the artist is ready to wrap this experiment up. First, she measures the four sprouts that have grown in the 0% and 20% La Croix cans. They are long. Beautiful. Despite a slow start the 20% sprouts are only an inch shorter than the 0% sprouts at 11 inches and 12 inches respectively.  

More impressive is the mold that the artist now proudly shows off for the camera. What beautiful mold. It is mostly green. There is some on the 20% can which is a greenish grey. 40% is looking particularly moldy. In 60% COCOA PUFFS, the mold has taken over the outside edge of the can and looks like it’s eating it’s way inward. At 80% COCOA PUFFS, the mold is a more vibrant green, but at 100% COCOA PUFFS, the mold has formed an impressive green swirl across the rocky landscape of the COCOA PUFFS that the artist thinks looks particularly striking 

The artist sets to the task of dissecting the sprouts and the mold. While 20% COCOA PUFFS grew almost as tall, its root structure is not as impressive.  

100% COCOA PUFFS struggles on coming out of the container. It’s crusted on top, but once it does come out, there are many lovely colors in it. Green and grey and white. The COCOA PUFFS themselves are a dark shell on top but a soft and very light brown in the soggy middle.  

The artist sits on the floor. She has avoided the box of COCOA PUFFS in her cupboard, but now that the experiment is over, she unwraps the leftover COCOA PUFFS from the bag and pours them into a bowl. The bowl has green stripes. It reminds her of the mold. 

The lonely artist east cereal while sitting cross legged on the floor. She knows she is filming herself and feels a little silly about it. But she liked the idea of this being the ending image. And she liked the idea of the ending words being: 

She takes another bite. 

The screen goes black.