Grow yer own dang biomass inadvertently
July 16, 2006
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Occitanian kitchen garden in May, as neat as you please
Way back in January, and then again in March, and again in April and May, I had big plans for my kitchen garden. Big and neat. Knowing that I would have to return from Occitania to the Polar Circle for two months of gainful employment, I alphabetized my seed beds and planted sticks for beans and gourds to climb up and a trellis for what I hoped would be groves of tomato plants, dripping with 4 sorts of fat tomatoes. I made a shockingly Dutch-looking irrigation system, so that when it came time to water, my neighbour, Sidi ElGouche could throw open the sluices and let er rip. And Sidi ElGouche being the sweetheart that he is, was not shy about making sure that in my absence, my kitchen garden got a goodly amount of water.
When I returned to my garden on the 14th of July, I encountered a solid plot of homegrown biomass.
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Occitanian kitchen garden in July 2006, a little less neat, but inadvertently producing what will become a thick mat of biomass (Please read more… )
debra at 15:54 | Comments (2) | post to del.icio.us
Soy story: food subculture club visits an exhibiton of Romanian otaku culture
July 9, 2006
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An array of Romanian textured soy products
What could be more obvious than the fact that the noble soybean, or rather, the humble hunk of textured soy and contemporary Romanian otaku culture are inextricably linked. You already knew that, right?
About one month ago, Mediamatic hosted a most unusual food-related exhibition about the intricate and vivid world of Romanian otaku. Otaku, a once Japanese, and now ubiquitous term for fanatic, refers to the group of people that live out the bulk of their social and cultural lives in social game spaces online. Artists Stefan Tiron (curator/artist), Bogdan Marcu (artist, musician) and Linda Barkasz (cosplayer/artist) playfully offered a glimpse of the inner workings of this subculture through a multi-media installation, comprised of costumes, hacked and remade computer animations, collections of manga literature, glittery stickers, sparkles, a replica of a Romanian otaku’s room, a goodly amount of oral history and a good old-fashioned BBQ featuring about as many Romanian soy products as anyone could stomach.
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Stefan Tiron opens the Mediamatic BBQ and tells the Romanian textured soy story
To attempt to sketch the outlines of a living subculture through art (or the medium of BBQ for that matter) was an inspired move by curator Arne Hendriks. All the more so because in the selfsame building at the very same time, the Stedelijk Museum was hosting a flat and populistic exhibition about the role of art in online game culture, Next Level. Obviously I prefer an exhibiton initiated out of engagement with the creators of contemporary culture to an exhibition produced to increase visitor numbers amongst teenagers whether there’s a BBQ involved or not.
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Curator Arne Hendriks and artist Bogdan Marcu converge. Sausage on the left, soy on the right
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Artist Linda Barkasz tells Katerina the story of the Romanian otaku whose offline personality was in need of a boost and for whom she made this costume.
What I learned during this food subculture club outing is that although soy is probably only specifically important to these particular Romanian otaku, soy has certainly played an important role in Romanian cultural history. For realsies. (Please read more… )
debra at 18:13 | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us
The object of my guestimation
July 7, 2006
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The Design Habit estimation tool by Srishti Bajaj, photo courtesy of the designer and used entirely with permission
It’s about ‘this much’, you gesture wtih your fingers, and the person you’re talking to is supposed to get a sense of what you’re talking about. We’re all wired differently. I’m an eyeballer and gesturer. London-based designer Srishti Bajaj has developed a tool to connect the gesturer with the measurer, and estimation tool. Last week I re-ran into her work, a collection of objects that are inspired by or refer to eating habits.
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The Design Habit estimation tool by Srishti Bajaj, photo courtesy of the designer and used entirely with permission
- Design Habit website and portfolio
- Three Vices reviewed at We-Make-Money-Not-Art
- Equalizer knife at Designboom
debra at 17:27 | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us
