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--- public_diet [2008-07-08 08:54] – katerich
+++ public_diet [2008-07-15 15:26] – katerich
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-=== feasability study for sustained sustenance: feral trade cafe at http ===
+**feasability study for sustained sustenance: installing a Feral Trade Cafe at HTTP gallery, London UK, from autumn/winter 2008. A platform to present feral trade goods and develop protocols for HTTP refreshment service, in line with the other public communications of the gallery. This research emerges from an interest in the public diet of cultural organisations where foods for thought and consumption might crossover; and includes testing the regulatory limits and social expectations for a cafe, as well as preparing the resources, human and otherwise, required to run it. **
-===== HTTP structure, business plan, fiinancial model =====
-Umbrella company is Catlow & Garrett (unincorporated partnership). Tax entity, overheads & PAYE.
-    HTTP and Furtherfield are not for profits with written constitutions.
+Feral Trade http://feraltrade.org
-    Furtherfield has an advisory board and is funded by ACE.
+HTTP http://www.http.uk.net
-    HTTP is a furtherfield.org project.
+===== CAFE motives, structure and infrastructure =====
-===== CAFE MOTIVES, STRUCTURE & INFRASTRCTURE =====
-    Motives for opening a cafe as an art project.
+  * Motives for opening a cafe as an art project.
-    HTTP is located in the back of beyond from the point of view of its visitors.
+Practical
-    Would like to give visitors to the exhibitions something more to chew on.
-    Sustenance and conviviality
-    Useful service for local residents and studio occupants The neighbourhood is changing,
+. HTTP is located in the back of beyond (an industrial estate in the residential London area of Haringey http://www.haringey.gov.uk) from the point of view of its public. A cafe would offer visitors something to chew on alongside the art: sustenance and conviviality, enriched space for contemplation, information and reading, and the oppportunity to elongate their visit.
-    it's a way of connecting with the local community that's more fluid and open, a softer
-    interface than the gallery. More everyday.
-    Promoting an alternate economy/ecology than those governed by hegemonic global
+. A service for local residents and studio occupants. The neighbourhood is changing - incoming small business and studios - the cafe would be an interface to that. A means of connecting with the local community that's more fluid and open, a softer and more everyday interface than the gallery.
-    capitalism and the profit motive. Even at this small economic scale it has a polemic
-    value.
-  * income scenarios
+Conceptual
-The cafe would be designed as financially self sufficient, although application for seed funding from ACE London agreed as ok. A feral trade project: kate to put in the application, Marc & Ruth to support.
+    http: The cafe will demonstrate an alternate economy and ecology that promotes free
+    processes and experiences other than those governed by hegemonic global capitalism -
+    so many shops deal with just money. Feral Trade is an economy based on other peoples'
+    activities and how you get from A to B.
+    Even at this small scale it has a polemic value.
+((Feral Trade relies on a moving network of social connections for the transportation of goods. Trade managed through an intricate time-space-personal system covering thousands of miles, linking hundreds of people, like the Trobriand islanders of yore. The orderly distribution of goods via a variety of motives, of which gain is not prominent.))
-   Feral Trade runs at a fabulous loss.
+Economic
+Profit is not a necessary motive - which opens up the operating territory considerably.
+Although stock should still pay for itself plus provide a heady surplus for office consumption. Seed funding will be required for start-up equipment and utensils: HTTP or external.
+   feral trade:Feral Trade runs at a fabulous loss, in business terms.
+   It operates in an absence of the principle of least effort which excludes it from
+   basic market measures of success. The investment is in the network.
-  * hrs of operation, winter plan - patio fire -
+  * hours of operation, visitor patterns, winter plan
-  * visitors: gallery visitors/locals. publicity/not
-  * visitor profile: current average numbers, travel and rival refreshments, duration of stay, seated or takeaway, reading opportunities
+Gallery hours are currently 12-5PM Fri-Sun, possibly extending to Thurs.
-  * physical setup: service and storage spaces, equipment investment, utensil choices
+Average 15-20 visitors per weekend, mainly arriving via Manor House tube.
+There is no cafe between the tube and HTTP although it is possible to take a
+detour to Costa Coffee, a commercial chain in the business mall on Green Lanes.
+Portuguese cafe in the other direction has good cheap espresso and a mainly Portuguese clientele.
+The cafe would not necessarily be linked to shows.
+The gallery has an exhibit approximately 3/4 of the year.
+There are gaps between shows. In winter and gaps, the distributed library http://www.http.uk.net/docs/exhib6/summer_of_folk.shtml and Feral
+Trade cafe could occupy the gallery space. People would visit for the library, or for meetings.
+Library visitor numbers are low but it's the intensity of the experience that counts.
+    http: It would be a coup to overcome London geography and keep the cafe open in
+    winter, without affecting global warming.
+Patio bonfires worth looking into.
   * caretaking: human resources as they currently stand
-  * preparation, stock management, service, washing up, cash-taking
-  * automation options
-  * vending options
-  * regulatory scenarios: use existing premises regulations as a template/mould for evasion. (plus alternate fully compliant design). produce an actionable Exceptions reading menu as research result.
-  * landlord relations, liability
+When the gallery is open, there is someone always available to respond to visitors.
+Saturday and Sunday have dedicated invigilation, Fridays can be more hectic.
+Currently Ale (Furtherfield administration and coordination) does Fri-Sat; Sundays they hire an invigilator.
-**MENU**
+Hazards: At what scale would the cafe interfere with other office activity?
-  * curatorial guidelines
+    * roles for cafe.
-  * food sources: search existing http networks for producers
-  * new networks: city farm, green roof, guerilla garden and allotment relations
+**Service:** preparation, waiting, cash-taking.
-  * considerations: legal perimeters, shelf life, network relations
+Cafe service role would be rotated amongst present core personnel,
-  * integrate feral trade core aims
+this kind of distributed culture is integral to the way Furtherfield works as a group.
-  * source and transport via organisational networks, use current affiliations and transits plus promote new ones (grocery callouts to allied orgs)
+http://www.furtherfield.org/about.php
-  * standard form for visiting artists/residents
+Cafe service should be continuous with natural office life, disinvesting refreshment service of any separate lowered status. [[householding]]
-  * limits of biscuit
-  * commissioning foods, seasonality
+**Management:** Feral Trade would remain involved in the politics and practicalities of supply. Day to day stock management would be 1 person's responsibility,
-  * writeability: visitors can supply menu items?
+probably Ale who deals with this kind of thing anyway.
-  * staples: coffee, tea, milk, sugar, cola, 'biscuits' incl. computer-biscuits, condiments incl. apple mush
-  * emergency sale items
+  * physical setup: service and storage spaces, equipment investment, utensil choices
-  * cultivation
-  * under the counter other
+Initial investment for equipment, utensils, presentation media.
+At a minimum, tables, chairs, umbrellas and signage to communicate cafe presence to the nighbourhood.
+The decking along the side of HTTP building is potential cafe seating area. HTTP to sound the landlord out on this between rent payments,
+Landlord relations are distantly friendly. There is a janitor who keeps a close eye
+on the compound. If landlord rejects decking plans, the parking spaces in front are
+formally HTTP's, included in their rent. Cafe could serve from here with guests seating themselves informally (on the decking). Decking receives no afternoon sun, another reason  to look at occupying parking.
+    Liability would need to be thought through or ignored.
+  * publicity
+Cafe would have its own publicity strand as a HTTP project, as well as being promoted as background for exhibitions.
+  * other models (positive and negative)
+    Cafe Kino http://www.cafe-kino.com/about/index.htm, Bristol.
+    Run by a collective of artists etc who also run the Here Shop & Gallery over the road.
+    Many of their customers are from their extended social networks, probably from
+    within a few blocks radius. People go there for the sociability, decor, wifi,
+    good tea/coffee, cultural contagion plus pleasure of investing in own social
+    networks.
+    Leila's Shop, Shoreditch. Expensive bespoke groceries / cafe, review covers the for &
+    againsts: http://londonreviewofbreakfasts.blogspot.com/2008/04/leilas-shop-shoreditch.html
+===== HTTP structure  =====
+Umbrella company is Catlow & Garrett, a partnership and tax entity, deals with rent and overheads, PAYE etc.
+HTTP is a http://furtherfield.org project.
+HTTP & Furtherfield are not for profits, with written constitutions.
+Furtherfield has an advisory board and is funded by Arts Council England.
+HTTP is located in a business arena zoned as mixed use (typically integrating residential, retail, commercial and social amenities) / live-work.
+=====  REGULATORY STRUCTURE =====
+[[uk_premises_regulations]]
+    Produce a Regulatory reading menu as research project.
+    Use existing regulations as a template/ jelly mould for evasion or compliance.
+http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&q=jello+mold&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=1&ct=title
+=====  MENU =====
+   * Curatorial guidelines
+   Coincide with HTTP core curatorial principles
+   Promote Feral Trade experimental trader aims.
+   * Stock Options
+Stock selection will involve a biodiversity of criteria, none of which should be primary or exclusionary. Considerations include:
+   - compliance with or skirting the regulatory perimeters
+   - shelf life: avoid sales incentive or waste
+   - the facility of the food item to reveal information ((The commodity,
+as object produced for sale on the market, conceals its relationships
+except for the money relation. The product of the commons is filled with
+human relations, including possibly unpleasant ones (Peter Linebaugh).
+Commoning produces social relations in the form of commons, freely associated humanity.
+Sarai Reader http://osdir.com/ml/culture.india.sarai.reader/2006-06/msg00073.html)) including
+   - information on source, relations with land, embodied by the transport of its produce
+   - information on carriage, network and delivery relations embodied by courier/s.
+   - seasonality, including transportation seasons
+   - locality
+    All cafe goods will be informationalised (onboard or on menu).
+  * Information
+Customer receipts can be A4 laser prints with a torrent of product information, alongside the date and price of purchase.
+Ingredients and products with questionable ethics can be included on the menu, along with  their product information. The main thing is to expand the product monologue beyond simple boasting and purity fetishes (eg. the truth claims, elevated origins and destinies - gourmet, organic, health - promoted by fresh and wild style packaging http://feraltrade.org/research/righteous_products); or the homogenous landscape of happy farmers that Fair Trade propagates ((an image set that reverses earlier breaks with tradition in visualising agriculture labour as a statement on rural poverty as opposed to example of pastoral virtue. See Gleaning, François Millet 1857 http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~waste/timeline/story-pic1.htm)) http://feraltrade.org/fair;
+to articulate a broader picture of the world the product moves through.
+[[tea_from_bangladesh]] for example.
-**OUTPUTS**
+  * Other Menu Information
+[[breakdown_of_expenses]]: Menu also to include items and incidents in the transit of cash preformed for the goods' procurement: particularly obstacles, as the materiality of money in small quantities generally defies the idea of the smooth movement of finance across global networks.
+   * Reciprocity
+Read-write menu. Open to intervention from random vendors eg. customers can contribute
+menu items via peddling stock (sale, trade or gift).
+   * Seasonality
+Economy of miniaturisation / smallscale. Enables hosting small batches/single items, ultra short seasons and microclimates. Menu format should be easily updated and transmitted (database-driven) and include out of stock items - wishlisted, in negotiation or pending delivery.
+  * Localness
+   Expand the notion of localness beyond the territorial boundaries of the village
+   or nation state, to more closely replicate the world HTTP works in. A shared set
+   of connections and navigable routes like the scale-free hubs of the internet.
+    * Suppliers
+Source producers or recipes from HTTP social networks, commission or collect artists' food projects, social connections to city farms or allotments, home cultivation
+(cake, jams, herbs, sprouts etc).
+   * Delivery
+Courier process. Use moving social networks including known and funded travel to HTTP
+to deliver goods from afar, including store-bought ones, and document this process via the Feral Trade Courier database, http://feraltrade.org.
+Actively promote inter-organisational trade with artistic peers, local and foreign.
+   * Regulations
+Regulatory limits: Define and stock emergency food products; define emergency; outer limits of biscuit; cream teas.
+   * Basics: Feral Trade staples start menu.
+      - Coffee from El Salvador
+      - Tea from Bangladesh (TBC)
+      - Cola from Bristol.
+      - Salt from Gujarat
+      - Zaytoun olive oil and other products http://zaytoun.org / local distributors at http://www.zaytoun.org/index.php/sellers/#London
+   * Other organisational contenders
+      - http://fo.am Brussels. Grappa, Latvian cured meats, computer chocolate biscuits.
+      - Mejor Vida Corporation, Mexico City. Hot chocolate
+      - Irational.org, Bristol. Food for Free apple mush
+   Challenge fresh+wild to a duel.
+===== OUTPUTS =====
+   proposed demo for mid-september ( jeremey bailey show)
+   possibly a harvest party / launch in oct
+   external: present at fo.am open sauces in brussels in november as part of public diet
+   disucssion
+===== SHORT VERSION =====
+Feral Trade cafe at HTTP gallery
+Feral Trade http://feraltrade.org
+HTTP http://www.http.uk.net
+HTTP gallery (media- and net-art) is a cultural minority in a mainly working
+class / cafe free residential area of NE London. The cafe will start off very small
+scale and is modelled as a means of extending natural office tea and coffee service
+to gallery visitors and locals. It is not motivated by cash profit, although goods
+should cover their own costs.
+All goods will be served with information about source and/or delivery,
+including the materiality of cash transactions performed to procure them.
+Visitors should be able to buy coffee etc either by the cup or in bags to
+take home.
+The feral trade courier process uses moving social networks, including
+known and funded cultural travel, to conduct international grocery
+trade by primarily social means. In documenting this process it expands the
+idea of food provenance beyond a gourmet-style fetishisation of origins, to
+broader relationships of supply.
+The cafe hopes to promote inter-organisational trade with artistic peers,
+local and foreign, and to expand a definition of localness beyond the
+territorial boundaries of the village or state.
-  * local: table menu of contents / protocols / products; launch/event
-  * external: present at fo.am open sauces event in brussels in november as part of public diet strand; optional network/franchise