New Source Statement

I have continued to develop the ideas surrounding my source. Throughout the semester I have been exploring the Western Diet, mass produced food, and notions of improvement. I will continue this track within the American industrial food system through the creation of an artist's book. In researching our food system I have noticed two faults which thread between the industry and the consumers and motivate them, respectively. First the food industry (the corporations in charge) are driven by a short sighted greed in the form of exploitation. They want to yield the most product, from the lowest quality ingredients while using the cheapest labor as quickly as possible. All of this is executed from within a centrally controlled and regulated system which is consistent and readily available to the masses. And second, the masses (the consumers) are driven by a short sighted resolution in the form of negligence. They want the biggest, quickest, easiest, and cheapest food they can get, and they want it to be consistent and readily available. My book will explore the American industrial food system through its most common output: the cheeseburger. In particular, my book will experiment with concepts of speed and materials.

The form of my artist's book will resemble a boxed fast food cheeseburger. The book itself will be 15 inches in height, width, and depth, 3 times as large as the average fast food cheeseburger, a play on 3 square meals a day. The box, or cover, will mimic a McDonald's box in its shape, hinged at the back to enclose its contents and hooked at the front. It will be made of a single sheet of chip board folded at its hinges and collaged with yellow tissue paper. The chip board is a very cheap, low quality material that is readily available and easy to manipulate. The yellow paper will echo the yellow foil used to wrap fast food. Upon opening the cover the reader is presented with a stack of 30 precisely cut 15x15 inch foam-core squares. Each piece of foam-core represents a different layer in this single cheeseburger. Each individual square will be collaged with graph paper on its top and bottom and then crudely hand stenciled with very a simple image of the ingredient (the layer in the cheeseburger- pickles, cheese, ketchup, meet etc.) that it represents. Foam-core was chosen as a material not for its seemingly sturdy appearance, but its actual weightless and empty reality. Like a fast food cheeseburger, there aren't any real quality, ingredients; its all filler. The graph paper is applied in order to represent the mechanized, controlled, ordered system of the food industry in which the cheeseburger is produced. The image is hand stenciled with the lowest artist quality acrylic paint I could find. I chose the most basic, dumbed down colors of red, green, blue and yellow available. My interest is in the dumbing down of the materials or ingredients and in hindering the speed and the ease of which book is read. The "reading" of the book is in the experience of removing each page from the box, consuming its contents and revealing the next layer in the sandwich. This event will not be easy, as each square is large and the box is tight. I want to slow down the viewers consumption. I want to reduce the speed. As the pages continue to be removed the reader will notice the monotony of the images as they are repeated over and over again, slowing the viewers interest. The book is not meant to bore the reader, but rather to make he/she consider their actions, to think about this repetition, and consider the cheap materials used in its production.