food
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The Glasgow Effect: A Tale of Class, Capitalism & Carbon Footprint
On 4 November 2019, Luath Press published Harrison’s first book. Inspired by her 2016 ‘durational performance’ The Glasgow Effect – for which she refused to travel beyond Glasgow’s city limits, or use any vehicles except her bike, for the whole calendar year – the book provides the complete context for her thinking and action. (Word count: 119,000)
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The Glasgow Effect
The Glasgow Effect was a multi-layered ‘research project‘, which took place in 2016. Its central provocation was that Harrison would refuse to travel beyond Glasgow’s city limits, or use any vehicles except her bike, for a whole calendar year (1 January – 31 December 2016). On 8 January 2017, she gave a talk about the work at the Glasgow Film Theatre. On 4 November 2019, she published a book providing the complete context for her thinking and action.
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Ethics: Extremism & Compromise
A talk by Ellie Harrison exploring the relationship between her life choices and her work as an artist for Artquest’s Practice 360° programme at Camden Arts Centre in London.
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Eat 22: The Personal is Political
One decade on, Harrison reflects on her seminal 2002 project Eat 22, and examines her persistent interest in ‘consumption‘ in recent works: Vending Machine, The Other Forecast and Anti-Capitalist Aerobics. An edited version of this text was published in the ‘Food Growing‘ chapter of Playing For Time (p.177-179) in 2015. (Word count: 692)
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The Other Forecast
Recorded LIVE in front of a green screen, Harrison’s The Other Forecast offers her summary of the absurd consequences of capitalism, as a warning about the future we are heading towards if the system continues unchecked. Broadcast on the Big Screen at MediaCityUK in November 2013 as part of The Other Forecast project – a collaboration between Harrison & John O’Shea.
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Vending Machine
An installation for which an old vending machine is reprogrammed to release snacks only when news relating to the recession makes the headlines on the BBC News RSS feed.
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The History of Financial Crises
An installation in which the turbulent history of capitalism over the last century is re-enacted each day by a row of popcorn making machines.
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Mass = Energy = Time
This kinetic installation uses two found weight mechanism clocks. The lead weights which are normally used to power the clocks have been removed and replaced by foods (bread and bananas) of the same mass. The clocks continue to work as normal – powered by the gravitational potential energy inherent in the foods. Originally installed at Goldsmiths College in 2002 and then at the Colony in Birmingham in 2004.
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TicTac Typing & Peanut Typing
This installation features two Mac computer programmes made during the LabCulture digital arts residency in 2002. The programmes mimic the common typing test, but rather than telling you your speed or accuracy, they inform you of the equivalent number of TicTacs or peanuts you are burning off whilst typing. Bowls of TicTacs and peanuts are installed alongside the two Macs for hungry participants.
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Eat 22
A year after completing Greed, Harrison began Eat 22 (11 March 2001 – 11 March 2002), her seminal data collecting project. For one year and one day she photographed and recorded information about everything that she ate. In 2007, Eat 22 was acquired by the Wellcome Collection in London.
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Potential Generator
Created in 2001 for Harrison’s Degree Show at Nottingham Trent University, this kinetic sculpture is designed to give gravitational potential energy to apples. Apples are placed on the escalator device at the rear of the bike and, when pedalled, are transported to a height above the ground proportional to their chemical energy content. A similar, proportionally larger, Potential Generator for doughnuts was also designed.
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Kinetic Cake vs Kinetic Carrot
A kinetic installation created by Harrison in December 2000 whilst studying at Nottingham Trent University. As a precursor to Potential Generator, this installation visualises the energy content of a carrot and a chocolate éclair, by racing them around two facing train tracks at equivalent speeds – the éclair being just over three times faster than the vegetable of a comparable size.
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Superfluous Consumption
Harrison’s first interactive installation (created in December 2000 whilst studying at Nottingham Trent University) draws an analogy between the unnecessary energy we consume in snack foods and that consumed by the electrical appliances we use for entertainment and comfort in our homes. The viewer is invited into an arm chair to watch various snack foods appear on a TV screen for durations equivalent to their energy content.
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Greed
Harrison’s obsession with data collecting – documenting elements of her own everyday life – began in New York in February 2000 with Greed. During a four-day visit to the city, Harrison challenged herself to eat as much as was humanly possible and to document everything single last bit.
Project website