Cooking with Information: Art, Science, and the Transformation of the Food System

A round table discussion as part of Cooking Earth, part of the LAB#02 “The Metabolic Sublime”

Is cooking art or science? Is it both? We live in an age of culinary conservatism, which is bad news for the planet, our taste buds, and our souls. While many of us strive for radical innovations in art, politics, technology and design, why does the world of food and agriculture seem so hopelessly difficult to change?

To celebrate Cooking Earth at Medialab-Matadero – a week of workshops, lectures and events dedicated to questions of food system transformation – we will convene a group of expert scientist-chefs, cultural producers and researchers to decode the ancient circularity between kitchens, laboratories, and the databases that coordinate them.

It was the domestication of fire that first alerted humans to the world-shaping power of chemistry, a tool embraced in recipes that span from bombs to cordon bleu. Join us to discuss the complex interplay between molecules and culture, the representation of food in art, historic (and future) avenues for change, and how we might “cook with information” to build all-new institutions, dishes, disciplines and methods for food in a planetary age.

Speakers:

Black Almanac is a speculative design-research platform that sees artificiality, alienation, and desire as key ingredients in the transformation of the global food system. Initiated in 2020 by Philip Maughan and Andrea Provenzano, the project brings together concepts, tools, case studies, and people for whom equitable, nutritious, ecologically sustainable and joyful cuisine is the minimum viable ambition for food in the century to come.

The Gramounce The Gramounce is a collective researching contemporary theory and politics. We explore how to best convey our research through food and art. We work through different platforms: our online course, commissioned projects and our supper club. The Gramounce is run by artists Nora Silva, Inês Neto dos Santos and Finn Thomson, all Royal College of Art graduates. It was born out of MilesKm as a fundraiser in 2014.

Tastelab is all about the future of food. As culinary visionaries and experimental scientists, the Tastelab team creates tangible and thought-provoking experiences that bring together food, science and sustainability. Innovative gastronomy projects, caterings and tailor-made events at the intersection of the culinary and the scientific world lay the foundation of the Tastelab offerings. Active since 2015, Tastelab was founded by astrophysicist Sue Tobler and computer scientist Remo Gisi to combine their three passions: food, science, and making things happen.