![Author: S.T. LoreClient: ACCA [Australian Centre For Contemporary Art]Designer: Matt HinkleyPages: 104Format: 1000 copies, ACCA NEW15 Catalogue Year: 2015, ISBN: 980-0-947220-07-5Purchase hereEATING WORLD'... Dishes begin stacking on the table:…](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/591402a9a5790aa5282317c3/1495769080769-JW71RI2O2JSUDOGNSA9U/stlore_eatingworld.JPG)
Author: S.T. Lore
Client: ACCA [Australian Centre For Contemporary Art]
Designer: Matt Hinkley
Pages: 104
Format: 1000 copies, ACCA NEW15 Catalogue
Year: 2015, ISBN: 980-0-947220-07-5
Purchase here
EATING WORLD
'... Dishes begin stacking on the table: corn fried in mayonnaise, green onion pancakes, scallops doused in rice wine, potato croquettes, cockles fried in Kimchi, and live octopi squirming over a fresh wad of napkins. With the sudden arrival of food, the political activity of the group is made visible: any discourse held in check by the violent swiping of gadgets. Distant voices announce dish numbers like an infomercial lottery — ‘Number 71, Number 85’. Larry was not expecting this table of cool, biting friction. It is a gastronomic parliament only lacking a bouquet of eager microphones. Reaching out for his first dish, a thin woman to his right, narrates his selection in aloud: ‘Classic Hor Fun! Slightly oily, the delicate rice noodles cool the dish.’ Without touching any food, she introduces herself: ‘Lyn. Speech therapist. You should take better care of yourself Larry. You might even be handsome if you were thinner. Me? I rarely eat. I enjoy looking at the food. But then I try not to smile either.’ Then, she offers him in a low and discrete whisper: ‘It produces wrinkles’.'
"... Behind her, a siege appeared on a giant HD screen. Broadcast live from a foreign country (indicated by the subtitles and a digital clock counting down): machine guns are fired, rocks are thrown, and a masked man, dressed in fatigues, leaps sideways out of frame while a bomb explodes behind him. At the base of the screen, scrolling from left to right ... 'the tech stocks are rallying after the NASDAQ opened strongly climbing a further 76 points to 2275.16.' Meanwhile, seafood continues to arrive, the waiter cutting the items up with kitchen shears, lopping off their heads and arms, cracking the shells and tearing away limbs. Abalone, still alive when set on the grill, suffer a tortuous death, snipped into mouth-size pieces: ‘Chewy and nutty in texture, slathered in fermented sesame paste. This is perfect!’ For a distressing moment, Larry watches the eyes of an octopus dilate with intense pain. Nausea swells his temple; sweat drips underneath his shirt. Using feverish tenticular retractions, the animal tries to escape, before perishing inches from Larry's plate ...'
' ... Larry's hieratic face flinches in astonishment as Lyn eyeballs a robed man grasping an octopus tentacle wriggling from Larry’s plate: “You don’t mind do you buddy? Amazingly agile creatures aren’t they? Shape-shifters. Colour changers. True masters of deception. Only the other day I watched a documentary of an octopus being sent through an underwater maze. It solved the puzzle in under a minute. Apparently the limbs can function independently of the brain and move of their own accord even when separated from the main body. Luckily for us they don’t have any sharp bones though ... hey!’
'... Parked in the emergency lane, away from the prying eyes of tourists, empathy for Wolf Down’s wounded subject is reduced. Using a covert strategy film theorists label aesthetic distance ‘Full disclosure: my name is Laurie Zimmer and I also overeat … inside this dark-age when International Relations are at an all-time low, with a rising collectivism assaulting our individual values, with border disputes labelled human smuggling; new forms of criticism must reveal our human vulnerabilities. But an award ceremony in a takeaway food court is just plain, bad table manners … 'I insist on buying my own food, Mr Spica!' And yet I applaud the fat man without pseudonym who purges himself of this 'Eating World' Larry, comrade! Don't forget to wash your hands!'