Its a 'Virtual Chef' year

Julie Upmeyer
A short end-of-the-year update about my 'Virtual Chef' project.

Virtual Chef is an interactive cooking experience - an art project, a dinner party and a performance, a conversation and a meal. The first Virtual Chef (in June 2007) was created because of my simple desire to invite my friend for a dinner party I was having in Istanbul, the problems was, she was in Poland. We connected with each other on Skype. She instructed us here in Istanbul how to cook a dish, with the ingredients we had gathered beforehand.

Since then, there have been 11 Virtual Chef events, connecting through the internet with artists, foodies and friends throughout the world.

Lots has happened with this project in 2009, here's the latest news:

--- Website---
I have one!
Yes....Virtual Chef finally has its own website, in Turkish and English, complete with event documentation, images, recipes and more.

http://www.virtual-chef.net/

also, the Virtual Chef Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Virtual-Chef/114328530218?ref=mf
and Twitter account: http://twitter.com/virtual_chef


---Events---
I've had 5 Virtual Chef events this year, three in Istanbul, one in France and one in the States. Two of the Istanbul events were supported by the Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture Organisation and took place in different municipal art and culture centers in Istanbul, areas quite far away from the normal contemporary art centers. Quite a different audience out there!


---Press---
Just this weekend Virtual Chef was in the Turkish newspaper Zaman.
Links to this and more articles are on the website : http://www.virtual-chef.net/html/press/press.html


---Videos---
Four of the events this year have their own short documentary videos. I've just uploaded the latest, created by Güliz Saglam from the most recent Virtual Chef event in Istanbul.

The Kucukcekmece video : http://www.virtual-chef.net/html/events/kucukcekmece.html
and the other videos can be watched on the various different 'Events' pages on the website.


---The Future---

Next year Virtual Chef will travel to Cyprus and Amsterdam. In Istanbul, there will hopefully a few more events under the umbrella of the Istanbul 2010 events. As the year progresses, others will undoubtably be planned.

I'd love to someday make a recipe book and a longer film about the project, but I'm not sure yet how to go about funding that sort of project.


Any comments, ideas, questions and suggestion are most welcome. Hope to see you at a Virtual Chef event soon.
Please pass along to anyone who you think might also be interested.

all the best,

Julie Upmeyer
Visual Artist - Initiator
Istanbul

julie@virtual-chef.net
http://www.virtual-chef.net/

Caravansarai - art production space and meeting point for creators in Istanbul: http://www.caravansarai.info/
Julie's other artworks: http://www.active-ingredient.net

Source: http://www.virtual-chef.net/