Artist Series: Emilie Baltz, Experiential Artist and Food Technologist

At our recent 2016 Color Marketing Group conference, an international trend forecasting organization, I had the privilege of introducing artist Emilie Baltz as our keynote speaker. Baltz shared her unique experiences in the world of art and food design experimentation.

Baltz is an experiential artist and food technologist who creates unconventional food-based work that moves people to discover new worlds one lick, suck, bite, sniff and gulp at a time. Her work includes inventing “lickable” ice cream orchestras, cotton candy theremins (electronic musical instruments controlled without
physical contact), singing ice block speakers and writing a book every few years. She always wanted to be in a band and does everything she can to transform all projects into a musical instrument.

Commission: Cotton Candy Theremin by Emilie Baltz

Experiment: Ice Ice Baby by Emilie Baltz

Commission: Traces Dinner by Emilie Baltz

A recent experiment called The Color Feast, commissioned in 2015 by The Brooklyn Brewery MASH Tour, is a dinner that explores the effect of color on our perception of taste. Guests were served a multi-course meal of all white foods under changing colored light, RGB coloring, while questioning how what they saw affected what they tasted.

Commission: Color Feast by Emilie Baltz

Her first book, titled “Junk Foodie: 51 Delicious Recipes for the Lowbrow Gourmand,” was developed out of a request from a blog site to create fun, unique recipes out of junk food for the office crowd. This humorous take on the experimentation of junk food lead to a future in food experimentation in the world of art.

L.O.V.E. Foodbook by Emilie Baltz and Carole-Anne Bousseau

The Museum of Sex commissioned Baltz to write a book on the relationship between food and emotion. Co-authored with Carole-Anne Bousseau, “L.O.V.E. Foodbook” offers an exploration of the relationship between food and emotion by presenting a collection of desire-based recipes from all genres of cuisine that defy the experience of traditional cookbooks. As designer, author and photographer, Baltz captured 42 recipes cultivated from her discussions with chefs from around the world. From Paris to New York, Bali to Belgium, 15 renowned chefs and mixologists were asked to create custom recipes inspired by the emotion of love.

Unique, over-the-top, and stimulating! Baltz is sure to enlighten with future insights into the world of food and art.

Where to Find Emilie’s Work

Her commissions include the Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), Bemis Center
for Contemporary Art, New Museum, Yale University, Museum of Art and Design, Museum of Sex and RedBull Studios.

Baltz believes in the power of community to realize new ideas. She is part of the founding faculty of the School of Visual Arts Products of Design program, as well as the founder of the Food Design Studio at Pratt Institute and a founding member of NEW INC (the first Art and Technology incubator at the New Museum). She is
presently developing food entertainment out of NEW LAB, an interdisciplinary space designed to support entrepreneurs working in emerging technologies.

To learn more, visit emiliebaltz.com.

All images by Emilie Baltz