A soup bowl was developed as the Amuse-bouche for the performance meal.

This meal’s narrative starts with one egg allowing the diner to meditatively make a one-to-one connection with the chicken.

Using a block of plaster as the positive form, an egg indent was slowly carved out.

Originally the soup bowl was designed with embed LEDs and a temperature sensor so when the hot soup is poured infront of the diner the bowl eliminates, visually conveying warmth. The technology side was omitted but this lead me to using a translucent/transparent surface for the soup bowl. Glass was chosen and these molds were made to slump sheets of glass inside a furnace at BrooklynGlass.

The molds are made of porcelain slip, fired to greenware stage. I rented a desk space at ClaySpace1205 for all ceramics works.

Before the glass slumping kiln wash is applied to all the molds surface as a mold-release.

The kiln at BrooklynGlass.

Because we tested with three different types of glass we didn’t know the correct firing schedule. After the first fire the glass only slumped halfway. A second(emergency) fire was needed.

A retainer for this glass surface was fashioned into a wire basket with chicken-wire detailing.

This is the beginning of the basket.

There was a challenge to figure out how to resolve the corners of this wire basket because the pattern was directional and did not yield a convenient transition. Sketching in 3D helped.

The chicken-wire basket taking shape.

I also rented a desk space at Brooklyn Metal Works to make the final connections.

This is the first-course(Amuse-bouche), soup bowl as incubation tray.

To final presentation page.

Chef PJ generously opened his doors for my research. During this time I didn’t know what my thesis project was going to be.

A lot of notes taking on the mannerism and rigors of being inside a professional kitchen.

I helped prep some of these mushrooms. There’s a lot of prepping and dedication to bring on an exquisite meal.

There’s a hierarchy in the kitchen and each time an order is placed one person announces the order and everybody chats in acknowledgement.

The chef of pasta.

Pastry has its own department. This divided chefs into different specialties. It reminded me of the fashion design world where if you’re a women’s night-ware designer you’re not necessary qualified to design women’s tee-shirts… But here I understand every ingredient has its unique temperament, chemistry and techniques.

I learned a lot from watching the prep works. Details, it is the last 5% of effort that makes up the entire experience.

I was very glad to see how spirited and congenial they are to each other. I felt I stepped into a family’s kitchen.

Immaculate stealthness observed.

I was overly excited to experience the full picture of the meal I ate.

Back to ‘Research and the road traveled‘ page

Back to ‘Research and the road traveled‘ page

I started thinking about this thesis project with a broad topic of FOOD. Through investigating the broad reaches of FOOD I hoped it would lead me to unexpected results during this 14 week thesis process. I couldn’t indulge in everything but I tried to be diverse with my curiosities.

These are initial sketches looking into creative ways to use technologies with food. A series of mason jars were designed to operate around the kitchen, turning a cooking space into a science laboratory. Other sketches look at how tabletop objects can incorporate technology.

Early thoughts to the ‘Eat Like What You Eat’ direction.

Field trips:
American Museum of Natural History’s Our Global Kitchen exhibition.

Various home good stores like Crate&Barrel and Ikea.

Restaurant supplies store: JP Prince, Bowery Kitchen and Broadway Panhandler.

A day in the kitchen of Ai Fiori. -more photos

A live poultry shop in Red Hook. -more photos

Here’s a list of my research materials:
-Issues-
Book – Michael Pollen: Omnivore’s Dilemma
Book – Mark Bittman: Food Matters
New York Times Magazine – Michael Moss: The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food.
Movie – Robert Kenner: Food Inc
Movie – James Colquhoun, Carlo Ledesma: Food Matters
Movie – Lee Fulkerson: Fork Over Knife
TED – Jamie Oliver: Teach Every Children About Food
TED – Mark Bittman: What’s wrong with what we eat.
TED – Dan Barber: How I fell in love with a fish
TED – Dan Barber: Dan Barber’s foie gras parable

-Science-
Web-episode – Harvard Science and Food: Reinventing Food Texture & Flavor | Lecture 6 (2010)
Web-episode – Harvard Science and Food: Meat Glue Mania | Lecture 10 (2010)
Book – Nathan Myhrvold: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking
TED – Nathan Myhrvold: Cooking as never seen before.

Click here to see the final thesis project.

Based on the idiom ‘you are what you eat’, this thesis creates a thematic dining experience that guides the invited guest through the process of food production, specifically the particular food they are enjoying at that moment.

The first iteration of this concept is a meal about chicken. A four-course meal is designed to reference various stages of an industrialize process of producing a chicken. Plates and serving utensils take the forms of automated feeders and other iconic farm tools to draw references to this theme, and allow the sole-diner to reflect on the act of eating, the things they are consuming and the associative costs of their future food choices.

(-video to come-)
The four-course meal consists of(full ingredient is listed below):
Amuse Bouche, Chicken Consomme served inside an egg-shaped glass bowl held inside a chicken wire basket. This references the incubation period where many chicks are hatched inside a climate controlled room. -process of the Incubation Tray.

Appetizer, Chicken Croquettes served out of a bird feeder accompanied by four sauces, Dill Buttermilk, Sweet Tomato, Hot Mustard and Shoyu. The sauce dispensers uses the actual metal water droppers from the factory farms. This course references the automated feeding apparatuses as each chicken are feed a special diet.

Main-Course, Reconstructed Brick Chicken(including heart, liver, fat and skin, meat glued together) served inside its own cage. This references their captivity inside battery cages.

Dessert, Chicken Tarragon and Schmaltz Ice Cream inside a sculpted chicken head, white chocolate shell. It is served top of a pedestal references a slaughtering cone turned upside-down.

Click here to see the process and road traveled.

The dining experience was performed in an industrial warehouse space in Sunset Park Brooklyn on May 5th, 2013. Two guests (Ms. Amanda McDonald Crowley and Mr. Ted Conover) were invited to experience this meal. Prior to the event, much of the details of this meal were intensionally concealed in hopes to capture a genuine expression from each diner as each course is revealed. More importantly, this reestablishes the host-diner relationship into something more akin to a farmer-herd relationship where the experience is prescribed for them, rather than of their choosing. However, several details were shared as part of the invitation. Such as: chicken will be served, the meal is in collaborations with two professional chefs(chef Anna Hopkins of lucullanfoods.com, and chef Elizabeth Kalin of bettybrooklyn.com), it is a one-person dining experience, this will be recorded as an art-performance/thesis project, the address is provided which is located inside ‘Industry City’ Bush Terminal, Sunset Park Brooklyn. Also we’ve noted that both diners didn’t have any dietary restrictions.

A rhetorical question is proposed as we look beyond the performance of this meal. When presented with details of industrialized farming practices, what emotions are evoked? Given this(unsolicited) information does it effect our food choices differently? IF some of these details of factory farming is concerning how do we negotiate between the benefits of industrialized productivities to the real cost of the processes.

The larger intension of this thesis project is to bring an added level of conscious, for all, to look at food in curious and investigative ways. For those who have the monetary flexibilities in making their food choices, food can be a nutritional choice as well as environmental and business fostering choices. I believe curiosities brings insights and knowledge which we can employ to making demands for positive changes. Regardless of social-economical disparities I feel FOOD is one powerful topic to continue(make) and sustain a healthy living in a healthy environment.

Our final group project for this class was to design something for the residential building at the corner of Columbus Circle, 240 Central Park South. We had unprecedented assess to the building thanks to the building’s owner(Jim) and manager(Peter). After a few visits to the building, which included the subbasement’s water heating to the tippy top of the roof, and meeting with a few residents we started to brainstorm possible interventions. One thing we were really impressed with was the vantage point on the roof. It over looked Central Park, Columbus Circle and surrounding canons of modern skyscrapers. We thought it was be a nice feature to provide this vantage point from the street level, making the building into a physical building periscope.

Our first challenge was connecting the viewfinder with the IP camera. We tried using Sean McIntyre’s and Deqing Sun’s wireless routers. We wanted to see if it was possible to link the IP cameras directly with the android tablet. There was no internet connection on the roof of this building and at first wiring seemed like a huge pain. We hit a lot of hurtles with networking and finally resorted to stringing a 150 foot CAT5 cable on the roof to the elevator room below.

We first picked a camera that would allow us to dynamically focus and move vantage points. At ITP we had several of these IP camera made by Axis so we borrowed one for this project.

The installation was a lot of fun, scary at times, since we had to climb to the tippy top of the building to install this camera.

For the physical form of the viewing device we wanted to keep the aesthetics of a periscope but we knew we had to work within the space. At first we wanted to have this be an optional indoor/outdoor platform. We realized later it would suit the building better being only an indoor viewing device. Below is the viewing sculpture we were aiming to build. A memphis-styled geometric form where handles and turning dials are in place to interface with the IP camera.

This is the video image from the IP camera at the location.

Screen Recording of Roof Cam from Michelle Boisson on Vimeo.

Here’s is a model car displacing a scenic car drive movie with an orange, car-crash movie.

The same movie combination with me as the video displacement.

This is our findings:

Mick Hondlik started the ITP House during the past summer. His goal is to make this into an artist collective. In this photo is the ground floor living room which opens up onto Grand street in Williamsburg. Someday Mick has plans to turn this into a gallery space.

They’ve a spacious backyard. There’s already a movie screening there by one of ITP students.

We didn’t want to overlook the living aspect of the place. 3 people share this refrigerator/floor.

This is how Mick lives. Clothes rolled up, always ready to go.

We then ventured upstairs to the rest of the house. We met HanByul relaxing before the start of her day. She told us a lot about her experience so far in NYC, living at ITP House and being a grad student at ITP. Overall, she’s loving it!

One thing that we all noticed was space. As is the case in NYC, space is a huge commodity. For the ITP House we saw several bikes taking up a lot of interior space. With their lofted ceiling maybe a bicycle hanging system would do the trick.

The 3 tenants married couple in mid-fifties (Lynn and Ralph) and one single woman also in her mid-fifties (Gabby). Lynn and Ralph work as college professor and a lawyer. They’ve been living at the building for a couple of years, having found the building through his mother. They love the view of Central Park and frequently go there to exercise. They also use the building’s gym facilities often.
Gabby works for the UN and travels often in the past. Her current apartment is what she considered her real home. One thing she loves about her apartment is her fireplace and outdoor deck. She loves the smell of smoke. The building is comprised of 2 towers with a shared lobby. Gabby lives on the smaller of the 2 towers and she describes the feeling of being there as similar to a village.
All 3 of them takes pride in living at a landmark location citing the adjacency to Columbus Circle and Central Park. The building have been in several movies including Tower Heist and housing people of fame such as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry author of The Little Prince.