The End Times is an economic report on cultural production in the Southern hemisphere. The newspaper investigates the relationship between the economies of cultures vs the cultures of economy – how societies that rely on informality and uncertainty find solutions & alternatives to austerity through the wealth of gestures.

Each newspaper was sold with a tropical cocktail & a slice of roasted goat.

Two traveling men, were carrying nothing more than an empty cooking pot. They walked to a village. Upon their arrival, the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food stores with the hungry travellers. Then the travellers go to a stream and fill the pot with water, drop a large stone in it, and place it over a fire. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travellers answer that they are making “stone soup”, which tastes wonderful, although it still needs a little bit of garnish to improve the flavour, which they are missing. The villager does not mind parting with a few carrots to help them out, so that gets added to the soup. Another villager walks by, inquiring about the pot, and the travellers again mention their stone soup which has not reached its full potential yet. The villager hands them a little bit of seasoning to help them out. More and more villagers walk by, each adding another ingredient. Finally, a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by all.

Participants could join the stone soup by checking-in ingredients at a central food bank, where their contribution was documented and catalogued using a color-coded card.

Ingredients were cleaned and prepped for a giant Chinese Hot Pot. Individual ingredients such as fish, meat and vegetables are dropped into a boiling soup for a couple of minutes and scooped out when ready!

Once all the contributions were recorded the values of each portion of ingredients was compared using labor (time) as a measure of worth.
Eg: 1 Serving of Chinese Cabbage = 3 Minutes sweeping the streets of London or 15 Seconds as a Mercenary in Iraq
We then created an internal stock exchange for trading ingredients based on colored stones. Most participants started the dinner with only one type of stone.

Diners could trade stones in three ways. Firstly by engaging in a legitimate gaming economy based on the traditional African stone game, Macumba.
Stones could also be traded illegally on an informal black market where the rules were determined by the traders. Finally swappers could also change their luck through chance, by playing the stone lottery where there was always the chance of picking up blue stones, which have no value. After acquiring a mix of stones to each’s taste by swapping and playing with other participants, the stones could be exchanged at the food bank for actual ingredients. The input and output of each diner was measured using the card system.

Tasty!

The aim of the project is to create new products for a Palestinian design collection to be released next year. Prototypes of all the objects will be shown at the Qalandia International exhibition in Palestine around November 2012. These are a few images of resources from the ongoing research.

The first Dutch settlers were sent to the Cape to establish a halfway station to provide fresh water, vegetables, and meat for passing ships traveling to and from Asia. The settlers brought with them trade from Europe and bartered with the locals for their sheep and cattle. As such, the Cape has been instrumental as a point for exchange between the Netherlands and South Africa for centuries. The Dutch delegation’s Pier to Pier project aims to re-establish a relation of exchange by trading design resources from the Old World. Bring your laptops, lower the digital cargo and enjoy free-trade from our pirate-ships.

Photographs by Paul Ward.

The evening stared with an appetizer containing Miracle Fruit, an African berry that changes the shape of tastebuds, turning all sour tastes into sweet). This was followed by a salad of pure lemon and lime wedges which tasted like candy.

Unlabeled bottles of water and vodka were dispersed, where the audience had to trust their noses in order to sniff out the drink of choice.

For the main course we created 60 x 1-meter long forks.

A gigantic space blanket was used to cover the tables & keep the food warm.

The main course was a selection of whole-roasted root vegetables served with piles of salt for dipping.

Penny Martin of Gentlewoman & Omar Sosa of the equally terrific Apartamento Magazine.

Photographs by Paul Ward.

I printed a new poster at the Rietveld yesterday: Love&Relationship Call now – A collection of Sangoma (witchdoctor) flyers from South Africa.
2 Colour screenprint on newsprint.

Special thanks to Kees Maas & his incredible silkscreen studio!

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CITRUS SALAD
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1 Tablet Miracle Fruit
10 Lemons, 10 Oranges, 10 Limes
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When entering the building each participant was unknowingly given powdered Miracle fruit along with a spiced tea. Within 10 minutes Miracle Fruit alters the tastebuds, converting sour tastes to sweet. The appetiser was served as a simple salad of citrus wedges which, to everyones surprise, tasted like syrupy citrus sweets.

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VODKA&WATER
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Each discussion group was centered around a crate with 12 identical, clear bottles. Some bottles contained water & others vodka. It was up to the participants to figure out who was having what. Drinks were served with a selection of orange, pear or apple ice.

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RICE & SPICE
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For the first course we presented rice balls with contrasting & complementary tastes. In order for several sharp flavours to work together, we decided to deconstruct the elements of southern Indian curry & sambals. Some of the rice balls contained: Spiced lemon Dahl Curry | Cucumber Raita | Spiced oil temper (dry chilly, mustard seed & cumin) |  Banana, Lime & Coconut Sambal | Lime Atchar | Avocado & Poppy Seed |

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6 FEET UNDER
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The idea for the main course comes from a biblical parable where both heaven & hell are described as banquets where food is plentiful. The only cutlery though, are 1 meter forks – the difference being that in hell everyone tries to feed themselves & not each other.

Due to the limitations of the space – no cutlery, crockery, tables or kitchen  - we decided to create a banquet table on the floor using space blankets which would act as both a surface for serving the food & keeping it warm. Next we created piles of salt and served slow-roasted seasonal roots, including purple & white carrot, black truffle potatoes, sweet leeks, and radish roots. It was great seeing the interaction and economics of food distribution, with some realising early on that the more people they fed, the more food they would receive in return.

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COFFEE & CAKE
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Desert consisted of 3 vegetables cakes – carrot, zucchini & pumpkin. Coffee was served with a nut,coffee bean, and cinnamon-salt brittle.

Photos by Simone Niquille.

A couple of interesting projects have been commissioned, including Rem Koolhaas’ super long lava escalator.

A massive new design department was commissioned for the Folkswang university. Too bad it went bankrupt in less than a year. We took a tour of the empty building and the height of each floor’s ceiling is determined by the importance of the activities performed. Needless to say the design studio is tall enough to fit in three floors. The whole thing kind of reminds of me of this…..
/hand-to-face.

Read-more for the recipe >

This invertebrate (Sepia officinalis), which belongs to the order of mollusks and the family of the cephalopods, is called calamaio (inkwell) in Florence, perhaps because nature has given it a sack containing a black liquid that can be used as ink with which to defend itself.

Ingredients:

• Freshly caught cuttlefish, with its ink sack (exact amounts below)
• Rice
• Onions
• Garlic
• Olive oil
• Beat greens

Preparation:

Skin and open the cuttlefish to remove the unnecessary parts, i. e. the bone, mouth, eyes, and stomach; set aside the ink sacks. Wash the cuttlefish well and dice them. (Cleaned, they should weigh about 1 1/2 pounds, or 700 g.) 

Finely mince two small onions, or better yet one onion and a clove of garlic, and sauté this mixture in a pot, in a quarter cup of good olive oil. When it’s lightly browned, add the cuttlefish and wait till they begin to color before adding about a pound and a half of well washed, ribbed, and coarsely chopped beat greens. Mix well, and let the mixture simmer for about a half-hour, then add 3 cups of rice (the weight of the cuttlefish) and the ink. As soon as the rice absorbs the color from the ink, add boiling water and finish cooking the risotto (stir in water, a ladle at a time, until the rice reaches the al dente stage). The rice should not be overcooked, and when we say dry we mean it should form a mound on the serving platter. You should, generally, accompany rice with grated Parmigiano, though you should forego the cheese when the rice is cooked with hard to digest ingredients like these, if you’ve got a delicate stomach.

Now I’ll give you another method, leaving the choice of which you prefer up to you. No beet greens, no ink, and when the cuttlefish begin to color, as above, add the rice and cook with boiling water and a half cup of tomato sauce or two tablespoons of tomato paste. A dollop of butter added will give the risotto grace, and when it’s almost done stir in some grated Parmigiano.

I also added some fresh North Sea octopus – cleaned and stewed in its own juice for 25 mins.