GASTRONOMY, CULTURE, AND THE ARTS: A SCHOLARLY EXCHANGE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS

1 Futurism and Transhumanism on the Art and Science of Food Jana Vizmuller-Zocco, York University Scholars researching the topic of food insist that the notion of food is from the very outset a combination of nature and culture, material and spirit, animality and humanity, self and other (Riva 10). But deep down the understanding of these dualities—or better, multivalences—rests upon each individual’s answer to the question, “How am I to live my life?” In other words, our general existential beliefs are projected onto and colour the answers to the questions of what, how, why, and where we eat. Of course, other variables make the answer dependent on a host of complex conditions. The following analysis offers responses to this question from two ideological perspectives seemingly at opposite ends of a continuum spanning all possible philosophical views on food and life: Futurism and transhumanism. Clearly, this quick overview can only hint at the tendencies, contradictions, and profound possibilities that these movements reveal about our humanity and our stance vis-à-vis the art and science of food. It must be stated from the outset that both movements operate on the underlying and unstated assumptions that there is no scarcity of food and that the economic, social, and political situation is stable. I. Futurism and Food Futurism is an artistic movement (whose heyday includes the approximate period between 1909 and 1944) which transcends the idea that art is something outside of lived reality. Above all, Futurism proposes that life and art are one embodied aspect of existence: what we do and how we live must be artistic and the art that exists must be an inextricable part of our lives.