Flux Gourmet

In his latest work, Peter Strickland grapples with one of the body’s most intimate relationships, the act of oral consumption. FLUX GOURMET makes food strange: how we cook it, eat it and even how we expel its waste products. The film takes place during an artists’ residency at the Sonic Catering Institute, a foundation dedicated to the auditory component of culinary creation, the inseparable link between what we hear and what we taste. Under the officious leadership of Jan Stevens, the Institute brings in “bands” of audio- chefs whose live cooking demonstrations are augmented with contact microphones, delay pedals, gated reverb and – in a key plot point – a flanger. Stones, a self-described “hack” who produces publicity materials and documentation of the Institute’s various artists-in-residence, is beset by a mysterious stomach ailment, riddling him with constant cramps and flatulence. He is clearly at the “bottom” of the Institute’s food pyramid, but this also affords him a detachment sorely lacking in the other participants. Poking fun at such fringe pursuits as experimental music, performance art and even molecular cuisine, FLUX GOURMET is a warped reflection of the world of high culture, where vegan intentions rapidly give way to bloody revenge. (Michael Sicinski)

In the presence of Peter Strickland.

Peter Strickland: BUBBLEGUM (1996, K), KATALIN VARGA (2009), BERBERIAN SOUND STUDIO (2012), BJÖRK: BIOPHILIA LIVE (2014), THE DUKE OF BURGUNDY (2014), THE FILM THAT BUYS THE CINEMA (2014), THE FIELD GUIDE TO EVIL (2018, Episode), IN FABRIC (2018), GUO4 (2019, K), COLD MERIDIAN (2020, K)