[-empyre-] Art Tech Food: Week 4

[Marina Zurkow]

Hi all,

I’d like to throw forth a couple of projects of mine - 
and ask a question of the list at large:

How do you all see the design of time/space in your own works?
I’ve found UX and interaction design tactics very useful in designing diners and participatory works that involve eating (for that certainly has a time and space element to it). 
I have also found Beuys’ notion of social sculpture to be a provocative inspiration.


I did a big fancy dinner for 50 ppl called OUTSIDE THE WORK: A TASTING OF HYDROCARBONS AND GEOLOGICAL TIME - at Boston University in 2013, and then at Rice University in 2014. The central theme was eating geological time, tracing the steps of hydrocarbon / fossil fuel formation and use, starting 250 MYA as marine microorganisms, and ending up as a gushing oil well.

The seven course meal, invented in collaboration with Lucullan Foods, mapped 7 edible small courses to each of the steps of hydrocarbon formation that ensue over Deep Time –  organisms dying and sinking, salt-crusting, sedimentation, compression, anaerobic conditions, floating, and gushing. 

There is documentation here:
http://www.o-matic.com/play/necrocracy/OtWRice.html <http://www.o-matic.com/play/necrocracy/OtWRice.html>
and a very coherent description of the Texas dinner in this review:
http://www.chron.com/entertainment/arts-theater/article/Artist-brings-complex-issues-to-the-table-5358323.php <http://www.chron.com/entertainment/arts-theater/article/Artist-brings-complex-issues-to-the-table-5358323.php>

Beyond the production of a highly interactive, memorable experience, filled with subtle material upwellings (eating Gulf of Mexico foods, both rare and prolific after the Deepwater Horizon crisis), one of the personal/critical outcomes was my commitment to begin producing inexpensive and accessible food projects -  and fast-hit experiences for publics outside of the gallery/university paradigms. 

I want to engage people in material contact with what might be uncomfortable realities or imperiled circumstances. In this era of increasing uncertainty, a kind of humorous, quizzical pleasure filled with questions can be a gift (it is to me, and this research and my translation saves me from total despair).

I’m currently working on two public art projects under a “brand” name "Making the Best of It: Signal Foods for Climate Chaos.” I am hesitant to call it a fake brand - I’m working on snack foods, drinks, teas, tonics, that are ecologically specific, edible responses to climate changes. One of these projects is being developed in the Gulf of Mexico, and focuses on jellyfish - long eaten in Asia but ignored by the west as a reasonable source of proteins, collagen, and other nutrients. Jellyfish are on the rise worldwide, and while scientists are hesitant to map the animals’ success to climate change, jellies definitely thrive in sites of anthropogenic disturbance. I’ve been in residence at Rice University for the month of March, working with two chefs on snack foods, and developing a program to dispense them from a bioluminescent electric vehicle or drone. Marine biologist Juli Berwald has been indispensable help in sorting out the complexities of this fascinating class of animals.

The other iteration of Making the Best of It is for Minneapolis; I’m working with geographer Valentine Cadieux, architect Aaron Marx and social practice artist Sarah Petersen on a year-long program of eating dandelions. Our work will span two large scale public art events, Northern Spark 2016 and 2017, both of which will be focused on climate chaos, as well as 5+ pot luck dinners in between, that engage a variety of communities in  conversation about food systems, nimbleness, and regionally specific responses to climate change and the uncertainty this is producing, either overtly or in more subterranean forms of fear, 

My art/food projects admittedly have a rarefied aspect to them, but they put people (including me) in contact with every day relationships to the materials around us —  be that waste or foodstuffs; and perhaps encourage us to eat jellies, insects and wild weeds in our diets as part of a program of “nimbleness.” I have grown to hanker after good jellyfish salad! If you are in Houston, have the version at MF sushi. One of the best $6 I ever spent, at an otherwise pricey (but delicious) restaurant. 

- Marina






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Marina Zurkow
bitforms gallery <http://www.bitforms.com/exhibitions/zurkow-2016> solo exhibition feb 14 - apr 3 2016
O-Matic <http://www.o-matic.com/> (projects web site)
Dear Climate <http://dearclimate.net/> (posters + podcasts)
moreandmore.world <http://moreandmore.world/> shipping & shopping! make custom swimsuits
The Petroleum Manga <http://punctumbooks.com/titles/petroleum-manga/> (book)
Faculty, ITP <http://itp.nyu.edu/>/Tisch/NYU

twitter: @zurkow
facebook: marinazurkow
instagram: squirrelzurkow

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> On Mar 28, 2016, at 3:05 PM, Amanda McDonald Crowley <amandamcdc at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> 
> 
> Marina Zurkow and Stefani Bardin, in week one, began a discussion of their NYC food mapping project. In this final week, I hope they might also share more information on some of their own art projects that address our food systems (that they didn't have the bandwidth to share during week one, due to other commitments).
> 

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