The Tincture, The Fluid,
The Comestible, The Vapor
Ritualizing the Omnivore's Paradox through the lens of the institution as body(2026)
Performance, Installation, Publication, Sound & Costume: Andreas Engman
Co-performer: Mei Lui / Food: Marente van der Valk / Paint & Pigments: Dorieke Schreurs
Publication, Visual Identity, Graphic Design & Edible Prints: Punxh Peerasin Hutaphaet
Photography: Jan van Eyck Academie
Curator: Bruno Alves de Almeida
“As he was escorted through vast halls (ventricles) and labyrinthine corridors (intestines) of the institution, he thought of what he had swallowed during the admissions interview. It scared him because he knew his life was at risk whenever he chose to ingest unknown matter, but so too was his place in the universe, his essence, his nature—in short, his entire identity, he thought. An object inadvisedly incorporated may contaminate him, insidiously transform him from within, possess him, or rather depossess him of himself.1 As they continued deeper inside, he began to hear drone-like sounds, distorted voices, and muffled chants; it sounded like a lament. Screaming voices in the distance heightened his anxiety; he couldn’t think straight. Were the sounds only in his head? Was he still acting of his own volition? A long walk deeper into the inner realms of the complex would eventually lead him to the chamber of rituals.”
1 Claude Fischler. ”Food, Self and Identity”. Social Science Information/sur les sciences sociales. (27. 275-292. 1988)
The Tincture, The Fluid, The Comestible, The Vapor draws heavily from the sci-fi–baroque short story written for the occasion. In this off-world myth and surreal political allegory about institutions as bodies and eating as ritual, we get to follow a bureaucrat-turned-insurgent who uses bizarre “gustatory rituals” to smuggle transformative matter into authoritarian systems, turning meals, smells, and digestion into acts of resistance. Set in a dystopian future governed by HypnoTech corporations and bureaucratic overreach, a clandestine Guild wages its quiet insurgency through acts of tasting, swallowing, inhaling, and anointing, as though ingestion itself were a form of revolution. Institutions are turned into living bodies, politics into a digestive system, and the self is treated as something unstable, always at risk of being transformed, contaminated, or unmade. Food is never merely food; it is threshold, threat, and metamorphosis. The result, a speculative theory disguised as a fever dream about food, power, and possession.
The work is presented as a performative 3-course gustatory ritual, in collaboration with Marente van der Valk and the Jan Van Eyck Food Lab, as part of the symposium Artistic Prefigurations, Institutional Becomings. The symposium was curated by Bruno Alves De Almeida and organized by the Jan van Eyck Academie, on May 28 and 29, 2026.
The work is presented as a performative 3-course gustatory ritual, in collaboration with Marente van der Valk and the Jan Van Eyck Food Lab, as part of the symposium Artistic Prefigurations, Institutional Becomings. The symposium was curated by Bruno Alves De Almeida and organized by the Jan van Eyck Academie, on May 28 and 29, 2026.
