A recipe for sharing

I love bitter flavours. Pilsner beer, 99% cacao chocolate, Campari, Italian dark roasted espresso, orange peel marmalade, and a newish discovery to me: karela (bitter gourd). One of the five basic tastes (bitter, salty, sour, sweet and umami) it is perhaps the most challenging for many palettes. However, in careful amounts and measured moments, it can harmonise the most complex dissonances . Bitterness can direct towards more clarity, accentuate depth and make room for finer nuance in our perceptions through the tongue and soft palette. In staying with the trouble of its disharmony, this flavour can deepen an understanding of the pith of any morsel.

This recipe first kneaded itself together with very sticky hands during my residence at Sound Art Lab in December 2024. Despite wishes for snow, the mizzly moisture from the fjord was a more constant companion to the grey cloudscape. During a late evening walk around the harbour after sharing my work at the LYTTEAFTEN (listening evening), I recorded a voice note to myself with some thoughts, my voice surfing on the tff tfffffff tffffff tf tf tf tfff of the wind bouncing through the tiny microphone. I was feeling quite empty but, in speaking this out loud, the key ingredients became clear:

“the intimacy of allowing oneself to say I’m confused. Here is my confusion. Not, here is what I’ve worked out, but here is what I’m trying to work out and here are the issues I’m finding along the way. because there’s a very different format to a presentation, especially in the context of a residency, which is a period of working [but also forming community]. I mean, yeah, why am I putting this pressure on myself to create something?”

This led me to reflect more on preconceived ideas of process in the field of sound and music making. There is still this general model of the singular lone artist in the studio, and a work being experienced when installed or released in a performer/object-audience dynamic . In the performative arts (theatre, choreography, performance) sharings of work in progress with invited feedback are by now standard practice both in education and the profession. What could opening our sound studios as a temporary communal practice reveal and contribute to our working processes? In the context of a residency, where the artist is the guest, what is the function of and expectation around sharing when you become the host? How do you host in other ‘non-art’ contexts? This may help to reframe the idea of presenting towards a more communal practice, where the artist is facilitator and their work is the meal which commonly
binds those present in shared experience as part of a creative process. Perhaps as artists and educators we can start to re-shape such formats and play with them, even artistically, so as to undo the de-facto of critique into more of a ‘tasting’, where the atmosphere is of trial and discovery, even if not all tastes are pleasant (at first).

The kitchen is,for many, the heart of the home and offers a different intimacy when invited to eat informally in this space. What changes when you share a meal in a kitchen space as opposed to a dining space? In the kitchen nothing is hidden and actions are visible, with smells suspended, spillages fresh, and pans left to cool. The condiments are a step and a reach away in the fridge and life’s happenings of the week and day complete the set. Perhaps we can ask ourselves the same question about the difference between a studio space and a performance space? Are you inviting those present to witness something or to engage with it? Are our guests really an audience who are just expected to listen, or are they participants who are invited to answer the simple question of: what do you hear?

Share this recipe with your friends, your colleagues, your loved ones. It is a gesture of inviting them into your process in the same way that you may invite them for dinner, or to stand next to you at the stove - a glass of wine in hand - as you gently fry the onions and then add the (meat/tofu/aubergines).

Ingredients

• 1 idea, anywhere from 2g-1kg, whole, or chopped roughly/finely depending on its substance
• a handful of doubts, or questions (bitter flavour) 1 double spirit measure of each - humility, large tablespoon

Method

Inhale and exhale deeply 3 times.

Refer to the dish you serve as ‘the work’ and yourself as ‘the artist’.

Add the idea to the pan using your voice as both the oil and the wooden spoon. Sear it on all sides, or saute keeping it moving. When caramelized add the doubt/questions slowly and simmer continuously stirring for 5-10 minutes until cooked.

Question: is there something you can play with in the presentation of the dish or the location where it is eaten (at a table?) which may affect what is received and how it tastes?

Serve to your guests, citing the recipe, the ingredients,and how many times you’ve cooked it. The work will come to the table as it is - bubbling, needing time to reach a cooler temperature
to allow the flavours to really mix together and greet your guests. Offer them suitable condiments, salt, pepper, chilli oil etc., to season the work to their taste. Don’t be surprised if they request something you don’t have.

Offer guests seconds (or even thirds) until everyone is finished, then ask about their experience. How did everything taste? What worked for them in the combination of ingredients? What might be missing? What’s left on the plate? We all taste differently.

Eat your ego for dessert!

Afterthought

• Invite your guests to write a ‘restaurant review’ of what you have shared in the form of a graphic score.
• Write one for yourself: Focus on the experience of cooking the meal, noting all the things that came up inside and outside you. Your body, your thoughts. Perhaps this memory will tell you more about the direction to go.