AV DINNERS
Live networked audiovisual-gastronomic performance
Combining the fine traditions of TV cookery shows and extreme gastronomy in a sensory networked cook-in, hungry artists gather to reinterpret rituals of food preparation and presentation. Four cunning winners of an online quiz with cryptic clues involving extreme foods are invited to ambient.space in East London as guests of honour. Notorious epicure Vitamin AA, assisted by his able auxiliary, Koko di Mari, conjures a series of ambrosial dishes to overload the senses of live and remote participants. The menu is crafted to loosen corsets, set tongues wagging, and unhinge minds without mercy. Licentiousness and depravity duly ensue.
Synaesthesia is getting easier
The sights and sounds of food preparation are captured using multiple cameras and microphones, and manipulated using the Max/MSP/Jitter software environment by LUX & MUX, who provide flashes and glimpses, gurgles and slurps. Lascivious aur-or-al poetics are composed and delivered by sometime Ninja Tune wordsmith Shane Solanki.
Networked Cook-Ins
The sounds and colours of Vitamin AA’s salacious cooking methods serve as sources for an audio-visual feast, streamed live. Agent Gav’s stream blender enables remote participants to mix three different streaming audio tracks – MUX’s sizzles and fizzes, Shane’s speaking-in-tongue-in-cheek glossolalia, and a documentary stream with behind the scenes commentary by the rest of the crew, which reveals the studio setup, tools and techniques. Simultaneous feasts take place in Amsterdam, Baghdad, Birmingham, Helsinki and Madrid. A chat channel enables remote participants to join in the dinner conversation.
Concept and realisation: © Manu Luksch & Mukul Patel 2013
Special thanks to dinner guests Jane Willis, Adrian Gothard, Andrew Humphrey and Masashi Fujimoto; to doc mic hostess: Kelli Dipple; to MYYMÄÄLÄ’s Gareth and Voytec in Helsinki for pikniking with us remotely; and to all chatterers from Amsterdam, Baghdad, Birmingham, Helsinki, and Madrid for joining the prandial discussions. Commissioned by Moon Radio Web TV
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