11 May 2009
05 March 2007
Un Lugar Donde Comer Sopa

Over on our food blog, Quotidian Efficacy, I posted a chicken soup recipe, the direct descendant of a recipe I used in an installation back when I lived in Valencia. Entitled Un Lugar Donde Comer Sopa, and unofficially dubbed "la caja de sopa" or "the soup box," it consisted of a wooden box, one meter square at the base and about 150 cm tall. The wood for the box was salvaged from old pallets and construction sites. The exterior was left aged, embedded with nails, plaster, concrete, and paint. The interior was sanded clean, and all the nails used in the assembly of the walls were nailed from the inside out. On one side was a door with a small window and a peephole, looking out. The door and window could be locked from the inside. There was an incandescent light bulb on the wall opposite the door, and a pair of shelves on the wall to the left of the door. One shelf ran along the top of the box, and contained about six books: Plantas medicinales de la Comunidad Valenciana, La poética del espacio by Gaston Bachelard, Si una noche de invierno un viajero by Italo Calvino, El placer del texto by Roland Barthes, and two or three others I can't recall. All over the interior of the box, hidden in nooks and crannies, were quotes from the books, and songs by Os Mutantes, written in English, Spanish and Portuguese. The other shelf was placed just above the knees, so that people could set a bowl of soup and a cup of tea there. The tea, more properly called an infusion, was designed to make people sleepy (the recipe is also available at Quotidian Efficacy). People entered the box one or two at a time, and I served them soup and tea, allowing them ten or fifteen minutes to sit, and eat, and drink, and read. One girl turned the lights off and just sat in the dark for fifteen minutes.
While looking through my archives to find the sketches below I came across this quote from The Poetics of Space, which perfectly describes my goal for the piece. I'll attempt to translate as best I can:
A veces un mueble amorosamente labrado tiene perspectivas interiores modificadas sin cesar por el ensueño, se abre el mueble y se descubre una morada. Una casa que está oculta en un cofrecillo.
Sometimes a lovingly made piece of furniture has interior perspectives unceasingly modified by reverie--upon opening it one discovers a habitation. A house that has been hidden in a tiny coffer.
The soup box had a number of inspirations, primary among them would be The Poetics of Space, but I would also have to include things like Dr. Who's Tardis, a drab box with a nearly infinite interior. It also spawned a number of progeny--among them, my Reading Cell, and a mini office my Portugese professor cobbled together (though perhaps only in his head) under his stairs.
After completing the piece and feeding everyone soup I planned on dismantling it and giving the wood away, but some friends conspired to save it. To this day, in theory at least, the box is in storage in a workshop in an old house in the tiny town of Infante.













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Labels: art, food, installation, Spain
28 February 2007
Quotidian Efficacy

I started a new blog today--Quotidian Efficacy, named after two of our favorite davehickeyan mannerisms. It's really just an online recipe book for ourselves in blog format, but it might be of interest/use to other people, and the labeling should serve as a decent index. So far I've posted a yogurt recipe. Happy cooking.
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25 February 2007
Solar Dehydrator

We've been taking advantage of the hot/dry season, and making sun-dried tomatoes on the balcony. As an experiment we also made a passive-solar convection dehydrator out of a couple of old boxes. Unfortunately we don't have an ideal place to put it, and it only gets direct sun for about five hours a day. Our first trial batch of bananas is up on the top balcony, waiting for daylight. We'll let you know how it works.




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02 February 2007
San Kamphaeng Hot Springs

On Wednesday after work we drove east out of town towards San Kampaeng, and then north from there to Thailand's egg strewn answer to Yellowstone. There is a small thermally active valley there full of sulfur rich hot springs. Any natural features that once existed have been destroyed, and the 105˚ C water gets piped around to little basins which people use to boil eggs (the egg boiling is such a popular gimmick with the Thai that they have a fountain featuring giant chicken and quail eggs), and two fake geysers. The cooler water has been channelized, so you can soak your feet while you eat your eggs. They also have private cabins with Japanese style baths where you can take a mineral soak for 200 ฿ an hour. After the bath Jami told me I looked younger. When I asked how much younger she said, "Younger than when we met." That was six years ago, so the water really worked some magic on me. I think it's because my back didn't hurt (I've gotten to where I hardly notice the near constant pain). May be I should see a chiropractor.



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Labels: Chiang Mai, food, Thailand
02 December 2006
Escherichia coli
Would you rather:
a. suffer from severely dehydrating diarrhea?
b. vomit every two hours?
c. spend ten hours on a bus making an obligatory visa run?
d. all of the above?
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09 November 2006
16 October 2006
"Believe" Lanna Style: Or How Does a Horse Eat a Japanese Ceramicist: Or How to Eat a Bug Sober
Our design workshop began two weeks ago Monday, and ended last Saturday. It was hosted by the Chiang Mai University Faculty of Fine Art Craft and Design Service Center. The real name of the workshop ("Believe" Lanna Style International Workshop) was almost as long as the organization hosting it. Monday morning began with two excellent presentations by Professor Vithi Panitchapun covering Northern Thailand's history, culture, and visual culture (I have both power points saved as PDFs, they really are great, but it might not be that nice of me to upload them without permission, but if anyone is interested I could send them a copy). After Vithi's presentations he took us around Chiang Mai and Lampang for two days. It reminded us a bit of being in Italy, the tour bus rolling through the green hills, but tropical.
I found out about the workshop the night before it began thanks to our housemate AS. Apparently two designers had canceled, AS had been invited by a friend to participate, but decided that producing two prototypes in two weeks might not be his cup of tea. So he passed the buck to me (Jami and I both thank him for that), and I agreed to do it, not really knowing what I'd be getting into. Jami came with me the first day, just for the lecture, and since they were still one person shy of a quorum they begged her to join.
Day One:









We call this one, informally, the butterfly dance, though it could be of a bird or a bat. We don't know much about traditional Thai dance yet, but we have been told that the different hand positions have different meanings.
Day Two:





Masamichi Yoshiakawa was one of the artists participating in this workshop (he and his wife Chikako). He thought it might be neat to pet this little pony, which promptly took a chunk out of his arm. In this photo here, you can see a blurry Masamichi with his sleeve rolled up to keep it out of the wound.







Days three through twelve:
These days include our trip to Maesai, Jami's indigo work shop at Studio Naenna (which she will write a post about, I already uploaded a video about it), and lots of work on our projects. We began the workshop not quite sure what we were supposed to be doing (the idea for my first project came suddenly as a complete image about ten minutes before I began talking to my assistant to tell him what materials I'd need), and it wasn't made clear to us that we actually needed to make two prototypes until Friday.








Day Thirteen:
In the morning all the participants gave brief presentations of their projects and prior work. The westerners went last. I wish everyone had a website for me to refer you to, but the only ones that do are Dave Besseling and Ofer Zick (though if anyone knows of any more I'll happily take corrections). For dinner we headed to a fancy open air restaurant that specializes in Lanna cuisine. And then the fun began.



These lovely ladies (oops, laddies i mean) were probably a close second or third after the balloons and bugs. It kind of surprised us how common transvestitism is here in Thailand, but it has none of the stigma associated with it in the states. There's matriarchy for you. Everybody just gets along.