Based on digital search engines, the Food Facility was symptomatic of the change in analogue thinking and acting after the emergence of internet. Everyone had the chance to meet the FOOD HOST, the FOOD ADVISER, and the FOOD DJ and order their take away with a twist.
FOOD FACILITY: Food Facility was a working prototype restaurant where the central kitchen is replaced by kitchens of existing take-out restaurants in the area. You were invited to make a choice from the menu of these take-outs and consume your order at Food Facility.
FOOD ADVISER: In a comfortable and social ambiance a food adviser gave you advise on the quality and estimated delivery time of the different take-out dinners available and placed the order for you.
FOOD DJ: A food dj received the order from the scooter delivery boys and did away with the abundance of wrapping materials before the food adviser served it to you at your table.
FOOD SERENDIPITY: Food Facility was a real restaurant but it was also an experiment and a performance. We invited you to participate, enjoy yourself, and research the possibilities this concept may have. With a little negotiating with other guests it was possible to have Tom Ka Ka as a starter, spareribs as a main course and Tiramisu for dessert. Although naturally it was impossible to forecast exactly what possibilities the evening may present.
CONCEPTS IN THE DIGITAL SLIPSTREAM: In the slipstream of digital technologies and the Internet, customs and needs developed with profound effects on the configuration of our material environment. Food Facility was the physical realization of the virtual possibilities promised by search engines like Google or Yahoo.
By culinary, culturally and socially linking itself to the local take-out network Food Facility became a platform with limitless possibilities to change its form.
EX-DESIGNER: Food Facility was a concept by Marti Guixé, the Catalan ex—designer infamous for his immaterial approach to a material profession and his taboo-breaking food designs like IBM sponsored beans and a gin and tonic fog. In Food facility he deconstructed yet another solid foundation of our cultural and culinary environment, the traditional restaurant.
A SHORT HISTORY OF PRIVATE FOOD IN A PUBLIC SPACE: The relationship between the locative restaurant and the non-locative kitchen was firmly based in history. Inside as well as outside of the art world.
Just a few examples from the Netherlands: In 1990 the legendary Supperclub and its chef Thor Vos organized an evening where the food was ordered from take-outs, including Mac Donalds.
During the conceptualization the Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam considered not opening a kitchen and having their guests choose from various take-out menu's in its vicinity. The idea was finally abandoned for its 24 hour à la carte restaurant.
Dutch artist Eric Wie was the first to ccreate a take-out food restaurant in a public space during the 1996 Kunstvlaai he created Arie Vederci, a restaurant where you could have pizza delivered.
In Groningen between 1998 and 2003 an artist collective named MPD Export organized similar evenings under the name No Kitchen United in different locations, one evening serving up to 150 guests! a selection of take-out foods.
Also well known is the way millions of lunches are delivered every day in the Indian city of Mumbai through a system of Dabawallas that very closely resembles the ideas unlying these various projects.
In China certain street corner vendors work excactly in this style, selling food that is ordered from little take-out kitchens in the neighbourhood. The only thing they provide is chopsticks, a small plastic kitchentable and chair.
related items:
guixe.com
buyguixe.com The Marti Guixe Store.
Useful + Agreeable http://www.usefulandagreeable.com/guixe.html Useful + Agreeable
