On May 29th 1998, I presented "Z Food across the world" in Marseille, France, where I lived 10 years before coming to to Cardiff, UK.
Marseille. The arrow points on my favourite swimming spot, Malmousque.
Marseille, mediterranean city, cosmopolitan mix, derelict industrial port, bad reputation, dolce vita french sauce, is my favourite french town. Its food culture is based on fish, the flag of which is the famous bouillabaisse (local fish soupe).
Stall from the daily fish market on le Vieux-Port
When I lived in Marseille, I never tried bouillabaisse, it just happened that way. What I ate the most, in the fish food family, were King Fish hamburgers from Quick TM, a french fast food chain.
I decided to work on that specific fish.
From left to right: King Fish seen from above, extracted fishburger, toy electric boat, extracted boat motor and propeller.
My idea was to bring the fish burger back to the sea. With the extracted elements above, plus a few electronic components, I built a square fish.
Square fish prototype. The circuit, batteries and fish piece are enclosed in a waterproof bag.
The square fish was given a basic behaviour: swim during the day, sleep during the night, thanks to an optoresistor.
Bringing the fish back to the sea, fish swimming away, 27/5/98.
Once the square fish tested, I went to Malmousque, my favourite urban swim spot, and released it in the open sea.
Flame from the Cap Bon (named from a famous brand of harissa sauce) and singing with zitare.
During the performance I showed a film relating the square fish experiment, built a Flame from the Cap-Bon (made out of Harissa sauce), and sang a few songs, including the brand new square fish song. After the show the audience was invited to eat specially home-made fish hamburgers (hand made buns, red snapper fillets, gouda with cumin, fresh lettuce and home made rouille fish sauce) and a selection of british deserts (Birds custard, banana Angel Delight, Sherbetts, Jelly Babies, Blood Balls...). Everything was eaten by the happy crowd.
The performance was organised by the organisation Vidéochroniques.
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