My microphone dances, just as cooks do. Food is never stable. During the workshop “On Rhythm: Sensory acts and performative modes of sonic thinking” (19-20 February 2019)”, co-created by Carla J. Maier and myself at the University of Copenhagen, a group of artists, researchers and cooks were invited to cook, listen and record together through introducing directional field recorders, stationary microphones, and film into the making of a four course meal. Inspired by the life dance research of Anna Tsing, I asked “How does intermingling the experience of microphones directly within cooking create a visceral register through which different rhythms can be felt, and multiple life dances noticed” (see: A. Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World, 2015: 248). How does the cooking affect how you move your microphone? Sometimes it is moved, it is walked, it is carried by the cook, who is also the participant. This microphone permits the cook to explore the substance, its textures in a different way: using the same hands dusted with flour, perhaps re-enacting particular physical gestures that go with the food making. The microphone is definitely not there to frontally interview people. It is there to evoke something, to shake up something, make one conscious of the interactions, of the materials, of positions, the frames and the cuts…
Sounds Delicious 