MS.BIBIMCHILLIKAAS

What does this project explore?

This project explores heterotopian aspects of Asian supermarkets created by diasporic communities. While Asian markets have been built and expanded out of commercial necessity, memories and recollections of the diaspora’s past are being recreated to adapt into local society. As a result, the stores have become a compound of food and ingredients from many different Asian cultures, which Bibimchillikaas, through building a gamified system that creates absurd recipes, and uploading the generated recipes as reels onto Instagram, emulates. A heterotopia can be a single real place that juxtaposes and combines elements from different times and spaces. For instance, A museum can be a heterotopia, as it is a real space, that is composed of different objects from different times and locations.

Reels, the gaze, fakeness

Asian markets are businesses started by early generations of the Asian diaspora, which originally dealt with food and ingredients from only one culture, but over time, their diasporas from different Asian cultures began to accumulate. From this we derive the initial concept of the Asian Mart that opposes time, space, and culture. Through re-creating the immersive chain experience from grocery shopping to food making, “fakeness” that is often overlooked by non-diasporic costumers of the Asian Mart is put into center stage. Where it will be portrayed using of Instagram reels. By setting set up a TV screen and a Monitor Cam in the exhibition space, people are able to pick one product and choose a dish (type) to cook digitally with AI generation. After inputting the name, the monitor will create a 5-step recipe in real time in sync with a virtual cooking-reel. After archiving/collecting a large amount of cooking videos, they will be published by our Instagram account (@ms.bibimchillikaas). Additionally, under the name ms.bibimchillikaas, a podcast will be released, gathering people to discuss Asian markets, business and culinary culture, which will also be available on the website.

Instagram reels as a materialization method

Reels as a fast-spreading medium situated in the digital public space, allows constant participation and encouragement as well as continual reproduction. While introducing fakeness to the audience, we take reels as a way to gather information through collective scrolling. Through the Act of reposting and re-generating “fake” recipes, we slowly degrade and fade out the concept of the authenticity. What to do with your recipe receipt (at home)? Be creative! You can try to re-imagine and re-design the dish in your recipe with your own culture and ingredients. Home cooking the recipe yourself, allows you to embody the romanticized vision presented in the Asian market. *This work is using software provided under the MIT License by Sercan Altundas.