“Food Design makes us explore food from a much more holistic perspective. It can force us to question the validity and efficacy of the way we grow, process, cook, and eat food” said Dr. Richard Mitchell not so long ago.
The experience of food is an ever-changing sensorium of taste, smell, texture, and community. Over the next decade, the landscape of food experiences will be transformed: there is the extremely valuable opportunity to combine future thinking with design tools to reinvent all our encounters with food and transform the food system.
This week we passed by Mediamatic, in the charming Amsterdam (Netherlands), and we had a dinner with Chef Watson. Curious? You should be!
Mediamatic is a cultural institution dedicated to new developments in the arts since 1983. They organise lectures, workshops and art projects, focusing on nature, biotechnology and art+science in a strong international network. They organise over 40 presentations, 25 workshops and 3 exhibitions per year. They are interested in how art, design and science merge and how we can use this to experiment with new living materials.
This week we are experiencing an interaction between food and technology, to shape a food experience with an unique taste, community and human-machine interaction.
A special “algorithmic dinner” is served at 7.30 pm sharp. The dinner is totally designed by Chef Watson. Chef Watson is the IBM browser-based web app that, using IBM algorithms jointly with the entire recipe archive of Bon Appétit, allows users to generate recipes by selecting a permutation of ingredients and a style of cuisine.
“Your dining experience might be completely algorithmically established now”.
The execution is performed by the chef Margriet Craens, resulting in a seven-course dinner where Chef Watson gladly shares information about the meals. Margriet is a multi-disciplinary artist and writer based in Eindhoven, experimenting with art, design, food, and culture.
We had the chance to be there for the first night. We don’t want to share too much (I don’t want to spoil the surprise!) but if you are either a techie, a foodie or simply a curious guy passing by Amsterdam, it totally worths to give a shot to this event! It will go on until Saturday 15 July at Mediamatic Biotoop — Dijkspark 6, 1019BS Amsterdam — http://www.mediamatic.net/