Category: Agriculture

Rod at Dawn

March 2, 2020 By arne hendriks Off

In 1994 popstar Rod Stewart gave a concert on Copacabana beach in Rio di Janeiro. And it turned out to be a legendary concert as it attracted the largest crowd of people in history for a musical event. 4 to 5 million people came to…

Japanese Miniatures: Akakomugi

February 17, 2016 By arne hendriks 0

Japan is the conceptual epicentre of shrink philosophy. Our ongoing series of Japanese Miniatures collects and connects these stories and hopefully eventually will be able to inspire some of the fundamental Japanese sensitivity and desire towards smallness in the rest of the world. Akakomugi, an…

Micro-Livestock: A Possible Future

January 8, 2016 By arne hendriks 1

Although animal science has traditionally emphasized bigness, the 1991 report Micro-Livestock: Little-Known Animals with a Promising Economic Future shows that smallness has many advantages. If in the future the human species will become smaller, we will benefit from most of the advantages listed below. Small animals…

The Fear of the Gods

February 3, 2014 By arne hendriks 1

In one of his lesser known stories, The Food of the Gods and how it came to Earth, the British writer H.G. Wells presents Herakleophorbia IV, a nutrient that makes anything grow to about six times its regular size. The story takes the reader, rather uninspired,…

Abundance Fantasies: Spherical Soup

October 30, 2013 By arne hendriks 0

The Disproportionate Restaurant investigates how downsizing the human species will affect our relationship with food. Over the past years we did a number of experiments, including abundance fantasies such as the Ostrich BBQ and Sunflower Table and explorations of new ingredients and possibilities such as…

Abundance Fantasies: Exaggeration Cards

August 30, 2013 By arne hendriks 1

Exaggeration cards are picture postcards depicting enormously oversized fruits, vegetables and livestock. First appearing in Fresno in 1905 the cards quickly struck a chord throughout the western United States. These  “tall-tale postcards”  became especially prevalent in small town rural communities hoping to forge an identity…

Micro-Livestock: Guinea Pig

May 21, 2013 By arne hendriks 1

The 1991 OFA report ‘Microlivestock: Little-known Small Animals with a Promising Economic Future’ introduces several alternative small animals for domestication and meat and dairy production. Small animals are easier to breed and keep, and are a quick way of supplementing a diet, especially in less…

One Bean Coffee

December 30, 2012 By arne hendriks 0

According to the Water Footprint Network the fresh water involved in the production of a single cup of coffee (125ml) is 140 liters. One part of coffee consumes 1100 water parts. To make an average cup of coffee requires around 40 coffeebeans. To produce one…

Deflating the Food Bubble

October 15, 2012 By arne hendriks 1

The era of world food security is coming to an end simply because we can’t sustain the way food is produced. Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Research Centre in Washington, says the demands for food are growing so fast that unless we deflate the…

Abundance Fantasies: Corn Cult

July 27, 2012 By arne hendriks 1

Mexican protesters against the high tortilla prices in 2007 rallied around an oversized corn. Their public display of the desire for an abundant food supply ressembles cargo cults in which the visualisation of desired abundance, or the context in which the abundance is believed to exist, is…

Six Cities / Empty World

June 20, 2012 By arne hendriks 0

Earth is turning into a global city. Over half the world’s population lives in urbanised areas and those cities are taking up more and more space.  Most of the rest of the world is organised to supply food and resources. Even so, cities are the most…

Rewilding Ghost Suburbia

October 21, 2011 By arne hendriks 0

If mankind decides to shrink, and we succeed to achieve an average height of 50 centimeters as The Incredible Shrinking Man proposes, one of the most significant changes will be the increase of available space. The scale of buildings, infrastructure and distance will be enormous…

Sunflower Table

May 3, 2011 By arne hendriks 2

Downsizing the human body will not only create an abundance of food, it will also open up unexpected new possibilities for sharing a meal. Possibilities like the dried sunflower table suggested by Marlyn Coetsier. Coetsier, a puppeteer from Amsterdam, researches how we will experience reality…

Baby Fruit

March 19, 2011 By arne hendriks 0

The upper end of the restaurant market is flooded by baby fruit and vegetables. Baby coconuts, Baby pineapples Baby courgettes, Baby every-single-fruit and vegetable-you-can-imagine. In today’s market only the products that catch the attention of consumers have a chance of becoming economically succesful. Playing with…

Aquarium Fish & Bonsai Birds

January 10, 2011 By arne hendriks 0

For the Disproportionate Restaurant we will investigate a different range of ingredients. During Transnatural several chefs will create a map of small ingredients and prepare a menu for The Incredible shrinking Man. Both will be offered for tasting. It’s likely that we’ll see a new…

7 Billion

January 1, 2011 By arne hendriks 0

In 2011 the world population will reach 7 billion.  To put this into perspective; around 8000 BC at the dawn of agriculture, the Earth’s population was only 5 million. At the beginning of our calendar (0 AD) this had increased to around 200 million. During the Industrial…

Disproportionate Restaurant

October 30, 2010 By arne hendriks 0

One of the more exciting prospects of shrinking mankind is the drastic change in food consumption. To investigate this aspect more elaborately The Incredible Shrinking Man intends to build a fully functional restaurant catering to customers that are 50 centimeters tall.  The restaurant will also…

Plant-stress and Size

May 4, 2010 By arne hendriks 1

As with animals, Plants can be dwarfed through genetic engineering and selective breeding, but environmental stresses  such as soil quality, light, drought, flood, cold, infection, and herbivory, can also lead to a dwarfed stature . However the majority of dwarfing in plants does not directly occur…

Micro-livestock

April 8, 2010 By arne hendriks 1

Micro-livestock is a term coined for species that are inherently small, such as rabbits and poultry, as well as for breeds of cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs that are less than half the size of the most common breeds. These miniature animals are seldom considered…

Abundance Fantasies: King of Cabbage

April 8, 2010 By arne hendriks 1

In the predominantly Anglo-Saxon culture of growing giant vegetables it is possible to get a taste of what life at 50 cm’s would be like in regards to the food supply. Visit the website of The European Giant Vegetables Grower’s Association for interesting links and…