The emergence of food collectives, as well as movements identifying with makerspace and hackerspace cultures such as Food Hacking Base and Hackteria, supports various experimental and playful practices, which are often participatory. We discuss a case study of foodhacking practices (the 2012 workshop in Prague on issues of spices and globalization) to identify the functions of such playful food prototypes. These practices paradoxically revive the original ideas of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin’s 1825 The Physiology of Taste, fusing gastronomy with global politics, science, business, and even philosophy. Present-day food hackers, like Savarin’s “political gastronomes,” use the “pleasures of the table” and gourmandism as an opportunity to rethink and experiment with both private and public systems around food and to question future scenarios.
Food Hackers: Political and Metaphysical Gastronomes in the Hackerspaces
Denisa Kera is a philosopher and designer interested in prototypes as tools for deliberation, reflection, and public participation in science with a special focus on food issues. She works as an Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore and is an Asia Research Institute fellow, with the goal of bringing together the disciplines of Science, Technology, and Society (STS) and Interactive Media Design.
The Center for Genomic Gastronomy is an artist-led think tank, cofounded by Zackery Denfeld and Cathrine Kramer in 2010. They study the biotechnologies and biodiversity of human food systems with a focus on the organisms and environments that are manipulated by human food cultures. Their mission is to map food controversies, prototype alternative culinary futures, and imagine a more just, biodiverse, and beautiful food system. Since 2010, they have completed research and exhibited in Asia, Europe, and North America.
Denisa Kera is a philosopher and designer interested in prototypes as tools for deliberation, reflection, and public participation in science with a special focus on food issues. She works as an Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore and is an Asia Research Institute fellow, with the goal of bringing together the disciplines of Science, Technology, and Society (STS) and Interactive Media Design.
The Center for Genomic Gastronomy is an artist-led think tank, cofounded by Zackery Denfeld and Cathrine Kramer in 2010. They study the biotechnologies and biodiversity of human food systems with a focus on the organisms and environments that are manipulated by human food cultures. Their mission is to map food controversies, prototype alternative culinary futures, and imagine a more just, biodiverse, and beautiful food system. Since 2010, they have completed research and exhibited in Asia, Europe, and North America.
Denisa Kera is a philosopher and designer interested in prototypes as tools for deliberation, reflection, and public participation in science with a special focus on food issues. She works as an Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore and is an Asia Research Institute fellow, with the goal of bringing together the disciplines of Science, Technology, and Society (STS) and Interactive Media Design.
The Center for Genomic Gastronomy is an artist-led think tank, cofounded by Zackery Denfeld and Cathrine Kramer in 2010. They study the biotechnologies and biodiversity of human food systems with a focus on the organisms and environments that are manipulated by human food cultures. Their mission is to map food controversies, prototype alternative culinary futures, and imagine a more just, biodiverse, and beautiful food system. Since 2010, they have completed research and exhibited in Asia, Europe, and North America.
Denisa Kera, Zack Denfeld, Cathrine Kramer; Food Hackers: Political and Metaphysical Gastronomes in the Hackerspaces. Gastronomica 1 May 2015; 15 (2): 49–56. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2015.15.2.49
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