Exploring food as a form of data expression

The Data Cuisine Workshop is an experimental investigation on the representation of data with culinary means. 

How does an escudella taste whose recipe is based on local immigration data? Would you rather like a soup based on the average rent in Barcelona in 1984 or in 2014? Can you imagine how different panellets could look, feel and taste, if they would depend on the geographics of Catalan diaspora?

During the workshop, we research ways to represent local open data in local food, through the inherent qualities of food such as color, form, texture, smell, taste, nutrition, origin etc. It offers to its participants the opportunity to translate data in concrete, sensually experienceable matter, from the language of numbers into the language of food, and thus to gain unexpected insights into both media and learn about their inner constructions and relations. 

The workshop is a collaborative research experience, blurring the boundaries between teachers and participants, data and food. At its end, a local data menu is created and publicly tasted.

The first two days of the workshop will consist of conceptual explorations and research. The second half will be dedicated to producing the data dishes in a professional kitchen with support from a chef. The workshop concludes with a presentation and tasting of the results on Friday evening. On Saturday, June 14, at 2.30 pm the workshop results will also be presented at Sónar Festival (Stage Sonar+D2, Fira Montjuïc)

The workshop is lead by Susanne Jaschko and Moritz Stefaner with the collaboration of the chef Sebastian Velilla.

Dr Susanne Jaschko is a Berlin based independent curator and author. With prozessagenten she develops participatory and processual projects for public and corporate spaces. 

Moritz Stefaner works as a freelance Truth and Beauty Operator on the crossroads of data visualization, information aesthetics and user interface design. With a background in Cognitive Science (B.Sc. with distinction, University of Osnabrueck) and Interface Design (M.A., University of Applied Sciences Potsdam), his work beautifully balances analytical and aesthetic aspects in mapping abstract and complex phenomena. 

Sebastian Velilla is a chef. He has worked for the Alícia Foundation and is currently involved in the activities of the Torribera Food and Nutrition Campus of the University of Barcelona.

Data Cuisine will use low tech and traditional cuisine techniques to visualize data and for this time in Barcelona the workshop will add another tool: a 3D printing food machine thanks to the collaboration of Luis Fraguada, Computation Instructor at Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia and member of Built by Associative Data, which work focuses in the utilization of digital tools and automated robotic production for a highly customized gastronomic experience.

Data Cuisine Workshop is a coproduction between CCCB and Sónar+D as part of the Big Bang Data project. 

More information at: Data Cuisine Project