Diary
Pipilotti Rist’s Japanese Pickles
Food, technology, togetherness, tenderness, the surreal and comforting parts of nature—these are all forms of salvation as we navigate the new realities of life on screen and at home. They are also worlds Pipilotti Rist has immersed viewers in with her art since the 1980s, posing the experience of a ‘collective brain’ in saturated colors, zoomed-in body parts or floating flora. Following on from the Swiss artist's seminal 1992 video ‘Pickleporno’, find below her recipe for Tsukemono (Japanese Pickles) from our first issue of Ursula Magazine—a new opportunity to experiment in your home kitchen with the most basic ingredients, plus time.
Ingredients:
SALT (washed out by rain water rinsed through the mineral rocks of the mountains)
VEGETABLES (most of their leaves are green to catch the widest range of different light-wave lengths between ultraviolet and infrared)
WATER (the substance, with more than 200 chemical anomalies, that enabled the evolution of organic forms!)
Preparation:
Cut the vegetables in pieces. Pour over saltwater so that they are fully covered. Let them rest and ferment for 3 to 21 days.
Take out. Drip off. Enjoy.
Did you think they were made with vinegar? Wrong. It is one of the facts that made me aware that I should remember not to trust my first assumptions.