The Well-Tempered Kitchen, Heat-Up Ratatouille (2004)

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A town is a space where everyday life is serialised. Urban life usually is defined by the pattern of public activities: street-life, traffic, the world of business, work and leisure time. But urbanity also takes place in the private and intimate space. Imagine the whole town behind the facades, ruled by thousands of common actions - so "normal" that they are of no special interest. The multiplication of these actions (like doing laundry, cooking, vacuum cleaning or watching TV) resulting in a serial pattern, a four-dimensional score. If complex enough we call this "urban life". Imagine the whole town just as the sum of all the household appliances it contains. An image of an enormous household-noise-orchestra will emerge, an orchestra performing the same symphony with slight variations day by day - thus structuring the city life.

This serialisation of everyday life is the main topic of The Well-Tempered Kitchen, a live-performance pointing at such "trivial" situations as the kitchens of a small town. The performance projects the private space into the public using normal life situations as stage set and everyday actions as theatrical gestures.

During the preparation of the performance alien productions ask the inhabitants of the respective city to send photographs of their private kitchens - to become part of an artistic event. In return alien productions appoint these kitchens pieces of art by certificate.

The photographs are collected, edited as serial sequence and projected as large scale video-loop - the "stage set" for the live-event. In front of the projection-screen: a simple kitchen containing hotplates, cutlery, pots and frying pans. All these serve as instruments for cooking as well as for producing sounds. During the performance the artists of alien productions cook a typical regional menu using traditional recipes. A computer-controlled kitchen-blender-orchestra plays the basic rhythm patterns. Acoustic cuisine or culinary music leads to a well-tempered result which is consumed by artists and public together - during the show by ears and afterwards by teeth and tongue...