[-empyre-] future scenario workshops and the imagination

[Marina Zurkow]

Shu Lea,

This is so wonderful.

I co-led a series of workshops with geographer Valentine Cadieux in 2014 in Minneapolis, around the idea of eating the future.
The workshops were hosted by the U of MN and Northern Lights.
We engaged about 25 participants (artists, writers, food historians, architects), who rotated in and out over 2 days, culminating in a "food prototyping" session at the U of Minnesota’s Nash galleries.
Food prototyping consisted of procuring ingredients and stuffs that could approximate the scenarios we invented. 
We then cooked and assembled these edible prototypes together, and retold out stories to the group and whomever else happened to be wandering through the galleries.

What would a picnic look like in the future?
The workshops consisted of  picking from 7 constraints out of paper bags - weather conditions (drought, heat, rains, unpredictability), food types (big ag, foraging, ultra-local, store-bought), picnic hosts (aliens, corporate boosterism), picnic context (a child’s birthday, a government event), material availability (used petrochem, scavenged)

One of the scenarios we developed rhymed very well with yours: 

Our subject was Taste Drought.
Corporations control all tastes and flavors. 
364 days a year, you eat bland tasteless food (unless you are rich). It is illegal to cultivate your own gardens or anything wild. 
On your birthday, a corporation sends you a flavor pack. 
Of course a black market for wild tastes springs up. 
Dime-bag sellers of wild mint leaves lurk in every alley… 

We prototyped this together by serving millet tacos, then making big mac communion wafers (yes, the whole thing minus the wrapper put in a food processor, then dehydrated) and bagging wild mint...

pics here: http://o-matic.com/ssc/futTop.html <http://o-matic.com/ssc/futTop.html>

Marina


> On Mar 15, 2016, at 5:13 AM, shu lea cheang <shulea at earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> I post the scenario here for some bounce off---
> 
> "The year is 2030. After years of cross-breeding and genetic modification,  the GMO seeds have failed to produce. The vast farmlands are left barren.  The seeds saved from biodiversity era have gone underground, cultivated by the RESISTANCE farmers.
> 
> The GOVERNMENT pipes out synthetic liquid food for mass consumption. The citizens are entitled 1000ml liquid food bag per day for nourishment. The food DEPOTS, built like the old style gas stations, are set up for liquid refill. Smelless, tasteless, colorful liquid bearing names of old farm produces (i.e. apple, beans, carrots, dikons etc.) gives illusions of real food flavors.
> 
> Rise up troupes of RESISTANCE farmers who search the old time produces and recipes to re-create the smell of home cooking. They build themselves small mobile kitchens.  Cooking and moving
> along secret alleyways, they bring back the smell of real food and the joy of eating. The food conscious citizens chase and follow the smell of home cooking. Gather around mobile kitchens, they share
> meal time and stories together."
> 

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