The ‘Bichi’ project metabolic pathways, biological food chains, and global networks

ABSTRACT

Pat Badani discusses how digital media and the use of food serve to design speculative new edibles in times when the future of food is jeopardized by the anthropogenically induced change in climate that causes biodiversity loss and food chain disruptions. Fertilized by different streams of thought related to food availability, Bichi is a practice-as-research project highlighting the need for ecological balance to secure the future of food. The artist examines the connecting threads between human and more-than-human nutrimental systems through projects that are born in her kitchen and further developed through computer technology. In the manner of culinary chefs whose professional kitchens act as design studios and manufacturing plants that innovate and transform ingredients; Badani’s kitchen is the springboard for DIY science in the creation of discreet sustenance networks between bio-sculpture material, mold, and fungi, leading to the design of evocative ‘animal-human-vegetal-polygender’ 3D simulations positioned between the organic and the computational. Exposing the porousness of boundaries between what might appear as separate registers: subject/object, fact/fiction, and science/culture, these electronically re-engineered bio-sculptures contribute knowledge essential to assure the resilience of nutritional systems, underscoring the need to channel efforts towards adaptation and balanced coexistence.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital media
• future of food
• climate change
• speculative visual fictions
• practice-as-research

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Pat Badani

Pat Badani draws from the fields of art, science, and technology to explore the intersectionality of environmental and social justice issues. She often uses food to create artistic arguments that blend aesthetics and criticism, charting connections between theories related to art as object, as medium, and art as critique of political and technological networks. Badani exhibits and discusses projects broadly in North and South America, Europe, and Asia and has participated in international symposia with her essays and talks in over 15 countries including at the Institute of Cultural Studies ZHdK Zurich (Switzerland); iDAT Plymouth University (U.K.); Art/Sci Center + Lab, UCLA (USA); NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, N.Y. (USA); Kungl. Konsthögskolan/KKH, (Sweden); Università di Bologna (Italy); Universidad de Caldas, (Colombia); and Universidade Anhembi Morumbi (Brazil). Projects have been distinguished with over 20 awards and commissions by the Canada Council for the Arts; Illinois Arts Council; DCASE; National Endowment for the Arts @ MacDowell, the Robert Heinecken Trust; and recognized with nominations by Creative Capital, Art Matters, and AWAW, in the U.S.A.