“Food makes philosophers of us all. Death does the same, but most of us try to avoid thinking about death. Of course death only comes once, so we can postpone thinking about it, but choices about food come many times a day, every day.” — Gregory E. Pence, The Ethics of Food
2
INTRODUCTION
3
AUDIENCE
4-5
PRECEDENTS
6-7
RESEARCH & BOOKS
8-9
RESEARCH POPPLET
10-11
MINDMAPPING AND SKETCHES
12-13
MOODBOARD
14-15
PROTOTYPES
16-17
EXPERIMENTS
18
FINAL PROTOTYPE
19
CONTINUING SCHEDULE
Food is one thing in the world that everyone needs to survive. It is our energy source, and because of this, food has become the subject of one of the largest, if not the largest global industries. Even though a majority of people are exposed to this system multiple times a day, they may not understand the process that lurks behind their store shelves. This process includes many different elements including commercial and governmental policy, and biotech science that enables new technology. Both policy and technology are the two driving forces that make it possible for the food system to revolve around the world, yet they are often not included in the often idealized picture of agriculture.
A majority of the population continues to understand the agricultural process as one that is pure and natural without ever seeing a real farm. A sort of tunnel-vision has come over the general population; people trust what they are told because they (generally) depend on purchasing food rather than growing it themselves. Labels, numbers and codes have become the new way of understanding safety. Nutrition facts and ingredient lists seem to satisfy the majority of the consumer population because they trust in the food system, and the technology and policy that puts food on their shelves. In reality, the food system and agricultural industry have developed into one of the most unnatural and manipulated processes that can be deemed as hazardous to the future population.
2
FEAR & TRUST IN THE FOOD SYSTEM The first piece of information is that we trust the system and that gives us reason to fear that system. They (by “they”, I mean the few global corporations that control the world’s food production) have a power over the food market that is unprecedented.
ORGANIC vs BIOENGINEERED The second piece of information is that we (westernized populations) have been mislead to think that ‘Organic’ is always better and that there is no upside to Bioengineered food. Organic and bioengineered foods both have their pros and cons both locally and globally.
THE WHEEL OF LIFE The third piece of information that my audience should walk away with is the fact that we are all part of a living system- we are not above it- or below it and we must work with it. When I say that we all are part of the circle of life, I mean that there are forces of nature that should not be tampered with, especially if we do not know the consequences.
“For some time now ecologists have been documenting the principle that ‘you can’t do one thing’ - which means that in a natural system whatever affects one thing ultimately affects everything. Everything in the Creation is related to everything else and dependent on everything else. The Creation is one; it is a uni-verse, a whole, the parts of which all are ‘turned into one’.” — Wendell Berry, The Ethics of Food
3
ILLUSTRATIONS VICTOR KROEN
GLASS CITY EL ULTIMO GRITO Grito uses glass as a medium to show how
WHY BUY LOCAL? E - LOCAL USA
Victor Kroen creates beautiful illustrations
common spaces seen in everyday life can
This infographic is not only an important
using a human or another natural form as
be broken down. He features some of the
source of information for my thesis, but it
his base and adding an invisible interface
most distinct spaces in the city such as a
also proves Wendell Berry’s theory that
to the body. The illustrations are a
hotel, a theatre, a parking garage, and the
you can never do one thing and that
response to technology and it’s impact on
underground metro systems. This is a great
everything is connected. The theory
the natural world. This apple could be a
way to display the flow of traffic in city
explains that no matter how small or
metaphor for the bioengineered world of
systems.
insignificant a choice may make, someone
agriculture.
else had to make choices before you, in order for you to proceed with your actions.
4
CHICKENOSAURUS JACK HORNER
BIOMIMETIC BUTTERFLIES THE BARBARIAN GROUP
RUBE GOLDBERG Rube Goldberg was cartoonist and inventor
“What we’re trying to do is take our
The Barbarian Group created these
famously known for his Rube goldberg
chicken, modify it, and make a chicken-
beautiful lifelike butterflies using simple
Machine. This machine was more- or less a
osaurus.” - Jack Horner. Horner is a
programming tools and laser cut butterfly
toy that represented an endless stream of
reverse evolver of chickens and a
patterns. The series is a beautiful example
motion. When one component was
dinosaur-maker. This project appeals to
of technology and nature working together
activated, it would trigger another
me because not only is it a hilarious
in a way that is graceful and intelligent. I
activation and so on and so on. This
concept, but also plays with the idea of
feel that this is applicable to my topic
Machine is an metaphor for the endless
taking technology too far.
because I also want to comment on tech-
cycle of life and technology that has
nology’s influence in the natural world as
influenced it.
well as the power of technology.
5
BOOKS, DOCUMENTARIES, AND INTERVIEWS I’ve been sifting through massive amounts of cultural, natural, scientific, biologic, and historical information as it pertains to the systems of food that are ever-present but invisible in nature. Much of my research revolves around Gregory E. Pence’s book called The Ethics of Food. Pence and the other authors that have contributed to this book are biologists, scientists, botanists and socioeconomic scholars share their thought on many topics. Some of those topics include Bioengineering versus Organic methods of agriculture, vegetarianism, impacts on the environment and politics and lawmaking as the driving force behind food systems.
BOOKS:
6
DOCUMENTARIES:
INTERVIEWS: I was fortunate enough to get in contact with a few of the Food Studies professors at The New School. Both Andrew Smith and Fabio Parasecoli were helpful in their own ways. Overall, I learned that, when I met them, that my subject was too broad. Since the meetings I have narrowed the scope to focus on a few elements while tapping into regions of the food system that directly interact with those elements. I also Recieved Andrew Smith’s book “Eating History: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine” which I believe will give me great insight into the food system as I read it.
7
8
The popplet below is a consolidated form of my research. There are a few main branches that I have been focusing on: the science of food, history of food, and the food market. These points focus not only on why, but when and how we have come to transform our means of food production from a natural and bonding experience to one that is detached and technologically separate from the human body. Our bodies and the earth were at one point codependent and this Popplet is an exploration of the causes and the effects of the technology that has broken that coexistence.
9
Sketching and Mindmapping are very important elements of my process. These sketches are only a few out of a dense pile that I have. Sketching my ideas organizes everything into systems and divides my thoughts into categories and flows. Some sketches represent the overall scheme of things while other sketches focus on an aspect of my topic.
10
11
12
13
Prototypes one and two allowed me to discover the complexity of the food system that I am uncovering. In prototype one, I understood that a person does not just make one choice, and so reflecting that I mapped the consequences of eating meat. In prototype two, I explored the reality of GMOs, Genetically Modified Organisms.
14
15
EXPERIMENT ONE: This experiment was a purely artistic one. I wanted to explore the repetition and patterns in nature. Different fruits and vegetables were scanned and documented. In the end I realized that no human eye can decipher what is a genetically modified fruit between an organic one. It is the label and barcode that assures us that this is the correct and safe food to eat.
16
EXPERIMENT TWO: After Visiting a local rooftop farm in Brooklyn called Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, I wanted to create Illustrations that exuded the proper and respectful methods of farming that the farm in Brooklyn Practiced. Below are illustrations of different crop groups that with every season should be exchanged for a different crop to ensure soil fertility. If this crop rotation is not performed, Soil depletion will often result in a poor crop yield. Many large farms do not perform this practice and rather pump the soil with chemically developed nutrients.
17
For my final project I am aspiring to inform people about these hidden systems specifically examining the technology and policy that decides what really ends up on our store shelves and why no one knows about it. So far, I am looking at one particular phrase that I read in Gregory Pence’s book The Ethics of Food, “You can never do just one thing” and applying this statement to what people eat today. For example, no one just eats a hamburger, there are hundreds of consequences resulting from that choice. The cow most likely ate bioengineered soy/corn meal for years, was pumped with hormones, and that meat was (more than likely) shipped across the country- and so on. There were hundreds of choices that went into that hamburger, not to mention the policies that apply to that meal. This is the bases for my informational project. I hope to make it completely factual and bring awareness to my audience. I’m going to break down the consequences of eating certain types of food by using a chain-reaction device called a Rube Goldberg machine to act as a metaphor for all the choices that are made. I would hope that this machine would combine projection capabilities as well as physical involvement with the audience. Here are a few examples that I would like to base my design off of:
18
Winter Break (December 21st- January 21st): MASSIVE OVERHAUL Solidify blueprints for Rube-Goldberg design. Layout information trails, flows and streams. Search for materials and funding for project. Use Google Sketchup and other software to render model. Begin storyboarding for projections and selecting Video Clips. January 21st-February 1st: Finalize Blueprints Finalize ALL BLUEPRINTS Consult classmates on blueprints and content. February 1st- March 1st: Construction Building Stage One: Skeletal frame. Create Framework for Machine. Wire Projections Connect projections to physical machine. March 1st- April 1st: Construction Create Additional structure Second layer including rails and details. April 1st- May 1st: Construction Construct Details including descriptors along the kinetic path. Final Testing of Rube-Goldberg machine May 1st- 15th: Construction Final details including color (set up exhibition) Senior Thesis Exhibition
19