Category: Consumption

Ozempic Meals

December 26, 2025 By arne hendriks Off

How to sell (almost) nothing. Approximately one in eight American adults are currently taking weightloss drugs. As the popularity of GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy leads diners to eat and drink less, restaurants across the U.S. are shrinking portion sizes and redesigning menus. “I…

Zero Sum Autobesity

November 18, 2025 By arne hendriks Off

Cars produced in 2024 are on average 5% taller than cars in 2016. The average car length in 2016 was 420cm, in 2024 it was 441cm. In the same period car width has also increased from 176cm to 182cm, and quite a few recent models…

Wide Brimmed Hats

July 18, 2025 By arne hendriks Off

Before Edward Bernays taught people to consume things we don’t need, fashion and it’s ideologies of constant change and replacement already inspired artistic response. La Moda Vuole L’ala Larga (Wide Brimmed Hats are Fashionable, 1912) starring Ernesto Vaser, is an early cinematic and funny critique…

French Door Fridge

October 10, 2023 By arne hendriks Off

Plus-sized fridges in American kitchens have long been regarded as a domesticated expression of the banal idea that bigger is better. And the rest of the world caught up. Today everybody seems to want a big fridge. Many a kitchen is dwarfed by its size.…

Shrinkflation

February 18, 2023 By arne hendriks Off

Shrinkflation, also known as the grocery shrink ray, is the practice of reducing the weight or size of an item without lowering its price. The practise is often used as an alternative to raising prices during times of inflation. We get less volume but pay the…

Fóxì

January 5, 2022 By arne hendriks Off

‘Tang Ping‘ or ‘Lying flat’ can be translated as a resistance to participate in the tempo and demands of current neo-liberal society by doing very little or nothing. Fóxì, or Buddha-like, is a rather more frequently used word similar to tang ping. Buddha-like youth, also…

Fry-Denial

December 23, 2021 By arne hendriks Off

In 2014 The Incredible Shrinking Man picked up on a story about Japanese McDonalds restaurants resorting to only selling small fries because of a frozen potato shortage. It seemed like a good idea. Now the Makudo’s or Makku’s, as they are called in Japan, are…

VW (Think Small)

December 7, 2021 By arne hendriks Off

In the 1950’s, U.S. industry had firmly embraced the ideology of planned obsolescence and obsolesence of desirability to convince consumers they constantly needed to buy something new. Competing auto makers were building ever bigger and more stylised cars for growing families with baby boomer children.…

Japanese Miniatures: Hara Hachi Bu

November 20, 2014 By arne hendriks 0

In the west we start a meal by saying  “Have a nice dinner” or “Bon appetite”. We refer to the quality of the eating experience but never to the quantity. In contrast, on the Japansese island of Okinawa, they say “Hara Hachi Bu” which means…

Japanese Miniatures: One Rice Sushi

May 25, 2014 By arne hendriks 0

The Japanese have a natural pull towards miniaturisation that never seizes to inspire our investigation into smallerness. Our series on Japanese Miniatures zooms in on this special quality. It articulates a sensitivity for smallness that, through a process of abstraction, may ultimately help us attain…

Voluntary Simplicity

April 23, 2014 By arne hendriks 2

Voluntary simplicity is characterised by individuals being satisfied with what they need rather than what they want. Simple living movements testify to the mindset and behaviour needed for humanity to make drastic changes. Its many secular and religious manifestations function as a source of how to…

Abundance Fantasies: The Alasitas Pathway

March 7, 2014 By arne hendriks 0

From an early age the miniature teaches us to want. During childhood toys in all sorts and shapes create the pathways for  a grown-up desire for material abundance. The promise is right there, in the palm of your hand: toy cars, doll’s houses, miniature cattle and…

Abundance Fantasies: Giant Sushi Roll

September 12, 2013 By arne hendriks 1

Our desire for tallness is strong and deeply rooted. So deep it is difficult to imagine the change towards a general desire for shorter stature. However, the human species is not the sum of just one or two desires but of many. In the Abundance…

Abundance Fantasies: Baby Burrito

July 15, 2013 By arne hendriks 0

Mexican restaurant Gorditos prides itself in serving a burrito the size of a baby. It’s customers have taken up the habit of taking a photo with their new born next to the burrito and putting the image up on the ‘baby wall‘. More than a…

Abundance Fantasies: Cornucopia

June 6, 2013 By arne hendriks 1

In Abundance Fantasies we explore the origin and contemporary meaning of symbols, stories and tropes of abundance.  If we’re smaller we’ll have more of everything. In this post we explore the cornucopia. The cornucopia, otherwise known as the Horn of Plenty, and literally meaning Horn…

Force-Feeding Milk

June 2, 2013 By arne hendriks 1

On the occasion of the FAO’s World Milk Day the Thai Ministry of Health’s director-general Jedsada Chokdamrongsuk revealed an ill conceived plan to boost Thai’s youth milk consumption from 14 to 60 litres per year. The reason for this? To  increase the average Thai male height…

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…

Abundance Fantasies: Grapes of Canaan

April 15, 2013 By arne hendriks 1

Our desire for abundance represents both the cause for the planet’s perilous condition and the incentive for a possible solution. If (despite Earth’s dwindling resources) we want to continue our present lifestyles, and the desire for abundance is stronger than the desire for being tall, eventually…

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…