Cabinet de Fumisterie Appliquée
Biography
The Cabinet de Fumisterie Appliquée (CFA) is the duo Elsa Ferry and the Russian-born artist Anastasia Bolchakova, both based France. Together they tackle issues relating to our future through scientific speculations and disaster scenarios inspired by headlines. Their projects, presented in France, Europe and Quebec, notably the Nutrition in 2050 and Horizon 2050 edition, from which Le Banquet is taken, explore a foreseeable future’s plastic, tragicomic and anxiety-provoking potential.
About the artwork
Horizon 2050 – Le Banquet is a segment of a multifaceted artistic project presenting an image of the future through the prism of the dietary practices of the second half of the 21st century.
The whole is based on Jean-Roger Helmin’s work Nutrition in 2050, edited by the artists, a compilation of scientific hypotheses and data as well as prankish futurist speculations. Attesting of a severe reduction in access to food, Horizon 2050 takes the form of a BIG BANG SELF and Governmental Food Distribution Units (UDAG) as well as the laboratories of the International Commission to a star-studded market at the command of the elite (CICE).
Intended for these privileged few, Le Banquet showcases the consumption of insects or worms, a revival of ancestral practices, and of synthetic lab-made foods. In a context of a global governing system in the grips of exponentially growing economic disparity, it equally testifies to a preferential access to a range of more diverse, healthier and sophisticated resources than what most of the population can obtain.
