Kinetics of the sword
DISPLACEMENTS
The culinary inheritance of this maneuver derives from its pedagogical sense: the cook is consistently displaced (from herself, others, her home) as conversion into the kitchen-machine progresses. And indeed, cooking itself is kinetic displacement: constant moving from one place to another makes up the gestures of cooking. An herb from the cooler, a knife to the cutting board, a pan on to the stove, a 90º turn of a knob.
Beyond an understanding as ascetic maneuver of the cook, displacement invites us for a closer look. On a smaller architectural scale, eating becomes the exchange of displacements: energy transfers as bodies build up and dissolve through eating and being eaten. So displacement is the dance of flavors, nutrients, fork and knife. But let us not forget the other edge of this keen maneuver, for in the world of fencing displacement is a dodge and therefore the best kind of counter-attack.
A displacement vector, then, is a delirious encounter in which we short-circuit, just as the lighting shoots through moisture in the cloud (an electrification of Archimedes’s principle). Displacement as a kinetic principle is that of a vector without a teleology, a building block of the zigzag, repetition and difference.
For our maneuvers, we displace an entire world, allowing it to touch others. Here we affirm the untimely, a counter to culinary trendiness (timeliness). In other words, we fold a napkin so that unknown points on the same plane may conjoin.
1.
HABSBURGIAN CAFÉ (2016)
Cover of The Cooking of Vienna's Empire (1968)
"The Viennese Café has taken on itself meditative silence and the aimless passing of time [...] One goes to a café in Vienna to retire into oneself. And each person sits, creating an island, as far away as possible from anyone else." Heimito von Doderer (1960)
"Its patrons are mostly people whose misanthropy is as strong as their desire to be with others, who want to be alone but, to achieve this, need the company of others." Alfred Polgar (1926)
We will be displacing our lives for the duration of this project, allowing specific daily rituals that belong to early 20th century to emerge. A dance of uniforms, tobacco, and serviettes. So please, come, sit in our hallucination on a street-corner, have a cup of coffee and slice of cake, read the first edition of VC newspapers. All transactions will be gestural, kinetic communication. Also, our third dispensation of the Crystal will be available alongside the sugar and salt.
Potentials of the menu:
Marble, silver, and cloth
A selection of Viennese coffee, milk, and cream
Sugar, salt, and turkish coffee readings
A gateau, or maybe two
A coat rack with the first edition of VC newspaper