Farm, Wonderful World and Future Evolution 1999–2004 Rockman's painting The Farm was commissioned by Creative Time and exhibited at the Exit Art Gallery in New York City in 2000, as part of the "Paradise Now: Picturing Genetic Revolution" exhibition. The work depicts domestic and agricultural animals and plants, and how they may appear in the future, as a result of genetic engineering. The work examines how our culture perceives and interacts with plants and animals and the role culture plays in impacting the direction of natural history. In his painting, The Farm, rows of soybean plants extend toward the horizon. "The way I constructed it is that, as in a lot of Western cultures, we read things from left to right.". "On the left side of the image are the ancestral species of the chicken, the pig, the cow, and the mouse"; on the right, their contemporary versions. Farther to the right are "permutations of what things might look like in the future." The choice of a soybean field as his subject is fitting since soybeans are the most common, genetically modified crop. A pig becomes obese with images of a heart, lungs, and liver imposed on its side. A tiny hairless mouse scavenges while a human ear grows out of its back. A rooster sits upon a fence pole, its six wings pressed against its side. For this work, Rockman consulted with molecular biologist Rob DeSalle at the American Museum of Natural History. "The Farm" lead to a residency and a body of work of four other 8x10' paintings called "Wonderful World", which was shown at the Camden Art Center in London in 2004. In Rockman's wonderful world series he describes a possible future of the Pet Store, Sea World, Hot House and Soccer. Rockman's interest in science lead to a book collaboration with paleontologist and author Peter Douglass Ward "Future Evolution", in 2001. Rockman and Ward co-authored the project, with Ward writing the text and Rockman creating the images. Rockman and Ward portray the future as abundant with plants and animals, that are descendants of weedy species or feral domestics. In 2004, the Monacelli Press publishes an exhaustive monograph with essays by Stephen Jay Gould, Jonathan Crary, David Quammen, and an interview with Dorothy Spears. Manifest Destiny 2004 In 2004, the Brooklyn Museum featured Manifest Destiny, an 8-by-24-foot oil-on-wood painting by Rockman as a centerpiece for the second-floor