meatRAVE

meatRAVE is a banquet installation presented at the Megapolis audio festival at The New School, New York. Visitors were encouraged to sit at a table covered with foods attached to contact mics and play along to a dense soundtrack of loops and beats composed from the sounds of foods squeezed, cut, torn and recorded in a foley environment. The installation pointed towards ways in which food can be experienced in ways besides smell, taste and visual presentation. The sounds of meat and vegetables were offered as instruments each with their own texture and timbre. These sounds were combined, processed and built into an environment that echoes the sweat and physicality of a dance club. Food has always been a commodity, but through recording, digitisation and remix it becomes a commodity more open to manipulation and re-contextualisation. At the point of consumption, senses of taste, sound and location are melded and re-imagined into new forms.

The foods in this excerpt are, in order of appearance...

Raw beef
Raw onion
Cooked rice
Nuts with knife
Raw Salmon
Wet tofu
Roast lamb

meatRAVE A recording workshop and interactive installation using the sounds of food. Presented at the Megapolis Audio Festival, The New School, NYC, April 2013 For further documentation visit wordthecat.com/meatrave.html Visitors were encouraged to sit at a table covered with foods attached to contact mics and play along to a dense soundtrack of loops and beats composed from the sounds of foods squeezed, cut, torn and recorded in a foley environment. The installation pointed towards ways in which food can be experienced in ways besides smell, taste and visual presentation. The sounds of meat and vegetables were offered as instruments each with their own texture and timbre. These sounds were combined, processed and built into an environment that echoes a communal banquet. Food has always been a commodity, but through recording, digitisation and remix it becomes a commodity more open to manipulation and re-contextualisation. At the point of consumption, senses of taste, sound and location are melded and re-imagined into new forms.

MeatRAVE was one day of hands-on Foley workshopping that led to another day of audio partymaking, featuring food and bodies played loud in the dark. Facilitated by Chris Wood, a sound artist and audio producer from London, UK, and Britt Wray, an audio maker, radio producer, podcaster, and investigative researcher of biotech from Toronto. From the MEGAPOLIS Audio Festival in New York City, NY: April 19-21, 2013. More about the festival: http://www.megapolisfestival.org