Liz Flyntz and Byron Rich
Epicurean Endocrinology’s next project is a meal kit delivery service in the style of Blue Apron or Hello Fresh, with an important distinction: we allow customers to sample the ingredients and send samples back to our lab, where we’ll test for endocrine disrupting compounds.
How it works:
We carefully construct recipes with ingredients that have been shown to sometimes contain endocrine-altering molecules. You receive a box with all of the ingredient required to cook the recipes, plus lab-quality equipment you can use to collect samples. You cook the meal (and document your results) and then send us your samples in an easy to use return envelope. We process your samples in our lab using a test called ELISA (Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay), a rapid immunochemical test that shows us whether your ingredients contained endocrine disruptors. We then post the results on our site for you to review – you can identify your results by number.
What’s in a box:
- A recipe card with easy to follow instructions
- All of the ingredients to cook a meal
- Recent scientific publications on endocrine disruptors
- Equipment for collecting samples of the ingredients
- A return envelope to send us your collected sample
How to participate:
Sign up to be part of the beta-tester group on our website! You must live in the eastern part of the US, and you must be able to receive packages, and agree to send us back your collected samples. We may also contact you with additional information and surveys. We are only allowing 25 participants into the beta tester group, so sign up now to be part of the endocrine-altering fun!
Epicurean Endocrinology is a collaboration between Liz Flyntz and Byron Rich. Epicurean Endocrinology explores the effects of food on hormones, and hormones on food. Concerned with how food is gendered and how it is sexed, they use food and vernacular cooking to examine the intersections of food production, endocrine disruptors, corporate/institutional influence, and cultural ideology as they relate to biopolitics. By framing careful examination of the ways in which food affects hormone production and use in human bodies through the communal and culturally resonant act of cooking and consumption, Epicurean Endocrinology brings awareness to the ways in which endocrine disruptors permeate food through biological processes and by industrial agricultural externalities.
All images by and courtesy the artists.
Liz Flyntz is a curator, information architect, and occasional artist. She’s organized exhibitions and screenings about time capsules, money, ergonomic furniture, slogans, Radical Software, and rock n’ roll nostalgia for venues in NYC, DC, Baltimore, Olympia, and Weimar, Germany. The Present Is the Form of All Life, the book she co-edited about the time capsule works of media art and architecture group Ant Farm is available through DAP Press. She’s also written for The Creators Project, AfterImage, and Intercourse magazines.
Byron Rich is an artist, professor, and lecturer born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. His work exploring speculative design, biology futures, and tactical media ecology has been widely shown and spoken about internationally. He was the recent recipient of an Honorary Mention from Ars Electronica (2017), and runner-up at the Bio-Art & Design Awards in 2016. He pursued a BFA in New-Media from The University of Calgary before finding himself in Buffalo, New York where he received an MFA in Emerging Practices at The University at Buffalo. He now teaches Electronic Art & Intermedia and is Director of Art & Technology at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania.