Interview by Joana - transcribed

EDITED VERSION

What are you busy with? (J) What are you working on at the moment?

At the moment I'm focusing on my project Nr. 39 with Rice, which is a reflection on an event that happened during an episode of Holland Got Talent in 2013. During the controversial episode Chinese contestant Xiao Wang was confronted with a comment that could be interpreted as being insulting and racial. Jury Member Gordon, a Dutch celebrity known for his singing, literally asked Mr. Wang if he will sing Nr. 39 with Rice, which in itself is a reference to the extended menus Chinese restaurants often have and the difficult names dishes carry [often people order a dish according its number, not its name]. Wang responded unmoved but it set the tone for the performance at that moment and the debate it caused afterwards.

What do you mean when you say it set the tone for the performance?

I think what happend is that the audience as with fellow jury members Chantal Janzen and Dan Karaty realised that the jest Gordon made, might be inappropiate. Nevertheless Gordon continued making suggestive racial remarks. I remember Wang being slightly uncomfortable with the remarks. I conclude this because of his expressions, laughing out of discomfort in stead of pleasure or joy, and body language, not to know how to give yourself a stance prior to his performance. He then performed and blew everybody away with his singing, yet it didn't withhold Gordon of making more suggestive racial remarks.

What about the debate it caused?

Afterwards numerous people and organisations picked up this event and reflected on it. The debate grew to such an extend that national newspapers, like Volkskrant and Algemeen Dagblad, and TV-programs, like Pauw&Witteman, covered the debate. There were mixed opinions about the event happened during Holland Got Talent. Some being more on the racial side, others more loosley(?). I find it interesting how a group of Dutch-Chinese people positioned themself in the discussion. In their viewpoint the event at Holland Got Talent should be utilized as a tool to bring native Dutch people, Chinese and Dutch-Chinese people more closer to each other. This in itself is a beautiful idea. To embrace the debate they created an offer where 39 dishes, in 39 Chinese restaurants are offered with 39% discount. I had some doubts about this offer.

What were your doubts?

I mean doubts in a sense that I'm not sure if this was the best way to bring different groups of people together, to let them interact and be more aware of each other. By having such an offer the emphasis is again on the number and I think that is not beneficial to the debate they want to initiate. Getting a discount is just nice and doesn't have to lead to a more comprehensive discussion about for example the integration of Chinese people or the position of the Chinese community in Dutch society.

So what do you do in your project?

In my project I reflect on the whole debate by going to restaurants, order the Nr. 39 dish and then take a picture of the dish how it appears. I take the pictures with my Iphone and with the flash on to get more vibrant colours. They are taken from a helicopter viewpoint. I want to take these pictures out of curiosity of how Nr. 39-dishes look like. When I think of Chinese restaurant menus I can sort of imagine that the first few numbers are assigned to soups and that this is a constant in the menus.For example Nr. 1 is always a Chinese tomato soup. But what is Nr. 39? Is it always the same dish? Or is different? Is it a dish with meat or fish? Or is it just plain fried rice? From the limited knowledge I had before I could't come up with a dish which could be THE Nr. 39-dish [like on Italian menus where the first pizza listed is always the Margaritha, second the Salami]. After some visits to Chinese restaurants and the pictures of the Nr. 39-dish I had, I could conclude that there is no order in what Nr. 39 is. So for now I decided that I would like to have a collection of at least 30 Nr. 39 -dishes. Next to that I hope to develop it a bit more than just taken helicopter pictures of dishes.

So what could this development be? (What do you want to do? (J))

One of the things I'm thinking of is to film myself when eating the Nr.39-dish. Recently I found a South-Korean phenomenon which is called Mukbang. In Mukbang indivduals, who are called Broadcasting Jockeys (BJ), deliberately film themselves eating food. Mostly this is ordered food, sometimes its also made in front of the camera. Usually the table they are sitting at is full with plates with food. Slowly they start to eat and describe how it tastes. Besides they interact with the viewers, for example answer their questions [Mukbang is a live broadcasting event, that declares the name broadcasting jockeys]. When viewers like or enjoy the live stream they can reward the BJ's with Balloons. Every balloon is worth 10 US-cents, so the objective for a BJ is to obtain as much balloons possible. What I like myself about these video is the voyeuristic aspect of looking at someone eating food, Mukbang is sometimes explained as foodporn or a fetish. Shape of foods itself can look sensual and certain foods are linked or considered as arousing. For my project Nr. 39 I would like to make a few amount of videos of me consuming the Nr. 39-dish.

It seems that Mukbang is a commodity market on itself and this is touching on of your other project TE KOOP. Is the commodity market aspect of Mukbang important for you? Do you want to broadcast yourself? And are the conversations then important for you like they are in TE KOOP?

I think Mukbang as a commodity market is interesting, but not something I want to be part of. I'm not sure at this moment if I would like to broadcast it the way they do it, but probably not. The conversations Mukbang videos elicit are then not important. I see my videos more as a performance of me eating the Nr. 39 dish or maybe it is more a documentation instead. I think also the videos of me eating will look very different than average Mukbang videos.

How will a video of you looks like?

In my videos there will probably be a more distance. When you watch a typical Mukbang-video you see several recurring items or setups. You see a dining table full with food, there is a microphone and a plate to eat from. In the background you see often stuffed animals, lamps and other (strange) items like a stack of Coca cola trays. The whole setting gives the impression it is well thought. And this is what I like to copy into my videos. The set needs to have certain fixed elements which recure, so the same space, the same table and the same background, but also behaviours. And it is exactly this behaviour which makes me want to make the video less close to me. What I want to do is have the food being broad in by someone. The food itself is still packed in boxes and in a plastic back. The person who brings the food stays anonymous, only the chest and hands will be filmed. The person leaves and I start unpacking the food. This has to be ritualised too, so what I mean is that unpacking the food must be done according to a certain script. I like to refer her to Unboxing, where people film themselves unpacking new products in a ritualized way. Unboxing can be sensual and is linked to Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR), a syndrome where people like to here certain audio related responses. After unpacking the food, opening the different boxes the idea is to make a composition of the food on a plate and have as much and hopefully all the food on a plate. Then I make a picture as described before and this action is also a reason to take a bit more distance. To make the picture I have to stand up and the action of making the picture is something significant for the video. After the picture is made, I start to eat and only eat. I don't think I will talk or try to make contact with the viewers. At least not in a obvious way. The video ends when I finished all the food.

And see the feedback you will have? (J)

Well, for mukbang that is live streaming, I more looking to Youtube as a platform to post. So it is not live lets say. But it would probably be different, I mean. The videos I probably want to take.. You when you see a Mukbang video its is really like a table, a dinning table with a computer in front of you. You can’t see the computer but thats recording you are, or the video is filmed from that angle of view. And then you see a desk with a lot of food and stuff and in the background you see all well decorated houses. Stuffed animals or toys etcetera. In my case I have to think about how do I want to film myself…

Setting? (J)

Yeah exactly the setting, the viewpoint of the camera. Am I going to use the same viewpoint of the camera or more distant or more closer? I’m not looking for to copy Mukbang. I’m more into like, ow lets see how it would look if I videotape myself consuming the Nr. 39 because thats leading. So what I have in mind now is, I need a bit larger viewpoint, so more into the distance where I.. Somebody is putting the food on my table, I unpack it, make a composition, make a photo and then eat it. So you know Nr. 39 is all about taking a picture of the food.

ah So in this way you are mixing your photography work of Nr. 39 with a more performative work showing the process and playing with this other platform? so it is a recording and for you it really doesn’t matter if you are doing it livestream? And at same point you make an event out of these, like the day that you decided that you are going to eat Nr. 39 live? Will it ever matter? (J)

If I do it live or here?

Yes because want oen thing you want to show the process and record and another things is to show the process live..? (J)

Yes, like I said maybe I’m not really into live broadcasting, I’m more maybe.. Lets say if I have one video it is maybe not so interesting, but if I have 10 videos of this recording (performance) that could be interesting. So it could be an actual art work lets say.

And what about the feedback. Do you want feedback from these people that follow these interfaces? (J)

You mean for example on youtbue.. Well I’m a bit afraid of that, I’m not a live performer. I think I’m very anxious when I’m in front of a camera. And be aware that I’m tapped. Especially when it is moving. So I don’t know.. For me it is really a challenge to tape myself and interact with the camera and then getting comments on that.. yeah that is a bit what I’m afraid for.

Could you not merge the performance into an actually space? Gallery thomas meant to eat live in a space on human size height and people then can join me eating as if they eat with me (T).

Cause you were switching from disguising to the one of being now in charge of everything. So before people didn’t know it was a work of art and you were hidden. Now you put yourself in front of the camera and showing your work process. Have you thought about this switch? (J)

It is a bit difficult, I don’t know how to answer.. I want to say it is not about me the NR. 39 project. It is about a phenomenon that happened, a comment that happened which was the leading point for me to execute this project, going to restaurants and take this picture of the food. Off course it is, it said something about me, because it is chinese food, I’m chinese, my parents are chinese, my parents use to have a chinese restaurant, my parents for sure used to have a number 39 dish on the menu, so it is for sure connected to me but I try to, you know, to make a sort of research art project about or around the number 39 dish, so this can be the picture of the food in the restaurant which i already take, this can be the videos I want to shoot and this can be something else. Ehm, that i tape myself while eating it, yeah of course i am there. I don’t know..

I find it interesting that you don’t want to ehm.. because in the other projects you have like the Tinder or TE KOOP you were talking with people online and now you are avoiding that ehm… (J)

Hmm, but hmm is there an interface for, i mean in nr 39 there is no interface, there is no message board. Is there?

Well if you are connected with the other website that is about eating live, because it came form this idea engaging with people but now you are disconnecting from that and it is becoming something static. And that is different from the other projects in which you are feeding on peoples thoughts and you have feedback from them and things grow out of it. (J)

I actually like the idea of that, you know the interactivity between people, but for example in Tinder I also don’t talk with people.

Ah you never do? (J)

No, only maybe if I’m lets say interested in somebody, but thats not the aim of me (aim of the project)

So its not (?), so you don’t discuss the project, you don’t tell them, they don’t know (that they are part of a project)? (J)

No never, Tinder is actually more about observing and collecting.

So it is the same sort of… You are an observer here as well in regards to the other one? (J)

Yes, I think maybe the talking is not so important in Nr. 39 (——> why not interviewing chinese restaurant owners? Hello?)

The other thing I wanted to ask, because you were mentioning culture and also your house the settings you have there also we spoke about that, so you want to make these back up of things you have been collecting like in the house the scenery, the dish… You really want to make a cultural statement sometimes it seems. It really feels like an identity… (J)

While when I’m eating the dish for example and tape that I am aware that the background can be modified or influenced the perception of the video lets say. For example if i put a plant there in the background or not, if i put there a stuffed animal in the background or not, if i put a picture there it can say something about me or about the project. Ehm it can personalise the image lets say.

So the scenery is something that you be (working on?) (J)

I would like to have a fixed scenery of course. So a fixed elements, so always the desk, always sitting in the same angle etc. etc. but the background or what is next to me, for example a big cup, a small cup, that can differ. And that can be small elements that you know discovered by the other.

So scenery is something that something that you will be working on…? (J)

Yes.

To your projects (when I look at your projects) it sounds like you, as you talk about like maybe it could be indentity, but you also have the ‘where you are’-geographically.. For example marktplaats selling it is in New York and other cities.. You feel like there is something like to (in) your projects that there is something like a red treath (rode draad) that goes through them cause i have feeling that your projects are also about where you are located…? Do you think that? (T)

Well yeah, in makrplaats it is about location, I do it in multiple countries. Tinder is also around a location, how far away the people are from me, or how far away i am t them. When i post does videos online it is also about distance.. But I don’t if it is really about the distance. For me it was just (more) interesting to inflitrate different websites in different countries lets say and see how people respond there and how they look at pictures for example.

So now the larger context.. Do you want to mention people or references or other theoretical articles? (J)

Well i saw last week a project… It was by Lawrence Agater (Look up, Printroom). Its a French artist, she live her in Holland and she also does something with a dish. And actually it was funny cause she took the same sort of pictures like i do but then with the hands of people. She went to restaurants and asked people to join them (?) and interviewed those people and also processed that interview or lines of that interview into a menu-card. So that.. yeah.. And the book itself was sort of a was also a menu-format how she presented the book in the end. So that was something i felt connected to in the number 39 project. For the rest it is very hard for me to relate to other projects. (with the nr.39). I saw once a book and i took pictures of them but i forget to make a picture of the author and i can’t find it anymore. but that was an interesting book because i saw also pictures of dishes, and i saw also a connection to the cooks and chefs who made them and the recipe of those dishes etc. so and the regions where the dishes were coming from, i think it was a book tom the balkan.

I wonder if you want to… Because I see that you don’t want to talk about the internet and how people connect to the location but actually but food is actually extremely local and it is a lot of cultural identity so is that something you want to explore? Part of your research? (J)

What do you mean?

I don’t know you already mentioned that the recipe and.. Do you see room for thought there? Does the food itself matter, because it is also about culture. (J)

Well that is something i have to think about. Like i said before I want to sort of develop the project.You know, having more than just the pictures. Like i said my father used to be a chef, i have connection with the chinese culture or the community lets say, i have family members who used to have restaurants or maybe still have or working in restaurants you know. Ehmsomething in my mind says that i want to aks chefs to make these really beautiful carrots you know which they carve out etc because my father use to do that for example. How i am going to implement that in my own project i am not sure yet, but i would like to…

So that is something for the future? (J)

For sure.

Because now it is more about the fetish around food and internet so you are in that level of connectivity but the physicality of the food itself… Because it is also something that is geographically totally dislocated, we are talking about chinese dishes in Rotterdam. And there is also other Chinatowns elsewhere. So this idea… (J)

So yeah in the future…. So before i want to do a lot of research myself, take those photos myself, make the videos about myself eating the food, doing lets say local collaborations with my father, other chefs or restaurants, interview them etc. When that is done, i would like to have a website where people can upload there own nr 39. Because of course there are Chinatowns in other cities, with maybe there own style of food (Chinese food is everywhere different and/or adjusted), lets say the Chinese food here in Holland is not actually actual Chinese food. When you go to China you have other food, the Chinese food here, doesn’t exist there. But thats really far away, before I would like to, I want to breach that gap..

But again it is funny, you skip the gastronomy again, it was again about uploading pictures on a website, but thats coherent in your work and this idea. And people do take a lot of pictures of there dishes (J)

Thats a reference by the way that people take pictures of their dishes. I think i read articles about the fact that people in class restaurants like michilin-star restaurants, they where complaining that people were taking pictures of their food. Beccause the think (believe) their food is copyrighted, or how do you say that there dishes, the composition of the food is you know theirs. You can’t take pictures of it. I think one of that was also something that was popped in my mind when i say that comments (articles?).

Food as an artwork you know (steve)

Yes it is a handwriting, a signature dish.

Yeah there is a lot of issues that you can derive from here (J)

So thats the reason why i also take the pictures is with my phone (i take the pictures on purpose with my phone). I don’t take fancy stuff (big cameras) into restaurants. So i really want to keep it to that medium (iphone).

Do you want to add anything else? (J)

No, i just want to develop this project lets say. For this moment it is very interesting. It is good that we talked about the michelin dishes, i almost forgot.

Yeah there is a lot of room for thought, but anyways its… you are now working with photography, video eventually, web-based platforms, you even made a book recently what about the other senses you mentioned at one point, will you derive from these mediums…. is there anything else you want to talk about? (J)

No.

For now it is just this..? (J)

No that is far far away, for now i want to concentrate on this.

EDITED VERSION

What are you busy with? (J)

At the moment I a'm trying to develop my Nr. 39-project, also in I think my focus of attention is at this moment my Nr. 39-project. Because I’m working on it for prototyping. Or lets say develop it more. So yeah thats what I’m doing at the moment.

So you do Nr. 39 as your personal research but also in Prototyping? (J)

Yeah for sure it is self-directed research, a personal project or how you call it. But now I have the chance to do it for prototyping, or I see space for that it and I would like to do it, because otherwise I would waste time or…

So what space do you see there? (J)

Well you know the gave.. The topic was platform and scaling and yeah I don’t I just had the impression that we more free and allowed to do what we wanted to do.

What do you want to do? (J)

Ehm well to connect that to platform and scaling. Basically I want to bring the project to a larger, bigger stage. One of the things I want to add is to videotape myself when I’m eating Nr. 39. And thats a reference to Mukbang, which is a Korean phenomenon where Korean or actually BJ’s (Broadcasting Jockeys) are consuming food in front of the webcam and talking to the audience etcetera, about the food or answering questions. Its like a livestream where people can log in and see the BJ’s eating the food. And when they like it, than they can send balloons with is a rewarding system and every balloon is worth 10 US cents. So the more balloons you get, the more money you earn. It is really a market economy.

Ah so it does follow the same platform as what you where doing before? It is also about money exchange..? And commodities? (J)

Yes, it is a commodity market in that sense. You are now making a reference to the TE KOOP project (marktplaats). But it, in this the commodity in itself is maybe not so important, I don’t know yet.

So there is a difference? Difference between? (J)

Between TE KOOP and Nr 39? Ehm the difference….

In abstract sense its not really… I mean regarding ideas and.. Because it is a behaviour now that you are recording and the other one is more about the objects and then obviously that you were also performance in there… Yeah you were actually in both of them.(J)

Ehm.. well in the videos I want to shoot, because I want to film myself eating the food, is that you see me eating. And in TE KOOP you, I was also physically there but then more in a hidden way. But it is not about, in this project it is not about hiding, at is more about.. You can see a sort of fetish to see somebody eat is… Mukbang can be translated as Food Porn, or Food-selfie. It is very from the perspective of the maker, maybe its maybe a very mechalomanic (megalomaan? Soort eergevoel) way of showing yourself, maybe its not a good description but to show yourself eating is quite posh maybe (this is food-selfie). While maybe form the perspective of foodporn or food fetish maybe there a lot of people who really enjoy to watch this or get turned on by seeing people eating. Mukbang is mostly considered as something.. they say people do that, and people watch because they don’t want to feel lonely or eating alone. You know in Korea, or in Asia households, mostly is one person households. So you eat alone and now by watching does videos you are not alone.

So this process of videotaping yourself, how did, are you looking at that interface? Are you interviewing people or you just no server and will in this way imitate? (J)

Well I don’t want to be a Mukbang BJ, its not about that. It is something I found and I thought I can implement this in my own project.

So you work online and only use this technique? (J)

Aw so you mean, if I want to put myself on a broadcasting platform?I would like to try that, yes..