Description of project by DINARA KASKO
Geometrical kinetic tarts
These tarts were made for the new issue of SoGood Magazine. This work is the result of collaboration with José Margulis, an artist from Miami, USA who works with Geometric abstractionism and Kinetic art. He creates different 3D sculptures, visual compositions of colorful plastic sheets. José works with curved shapes, volumetric geometries, transparencies, intense colors filtered through light and plays with endless combinations in a continuum of colored layers. Margulis’ utmost concern is the creation of geometric shapes conceived mostly by changing the perspective of the viewer accompanied by the philosophical notion that everything in life has diverse levels of narrative and spatial perceptions.
Streusel, almond cream, confit strawberry – red currant, mousse with white chocolate.
I tried to transform his creations, made of plastic, aluminum and acrylic, into something edible, using basic techniques and ingredients. Yet, I wanted to preserve his message and feel. It had to be an installation-performance where the art was created by José Margulis and then transformed by me into an edible piece of art which would be later consumed – thus disappear. I was transforming the object of art into something edible that would later perish, while emphasizing the ephemeral art, its fleetingness in our life.
As for the role of art, I believe that any object that we create should impart the observer with principles of beauty and harmony. Our role is to be educators of aesthetics, constantly developing our selves. The more harmonious things are around a person, the better the products she or he can create. It’s a universal principle of life. It absolutely does not matter how long the acquaintance with the art lasts. Even if it is sometimes fleeting – such as consuming my cakes. The appearance and, of course, the taste should leave a lasting impression and expand observer’s boundaries of what “cake” can be. I like to surprise people.
Streusel, almond sponge cake, confit blackberry-blueberry, mousse with blackberry and mascarpone.
Inspired by José, I wasted no time and made the 3D chocolate sculpture by his drawings. I have friends who are crazy about different machines and cutting tools. These unstoppable enthusiasts created their own workshop in my city called Garage Hub. We tried to cut out the slices from many sheets of red and white chocolate. It worked extremely well. Once the cutting was done, I assembled the pieces and put the composition on top of the berry tart. What an amazing result! It was a magical collaboration of three artists: a sculptor, an engineer and a pastry chef – each of us an artist in their own domain.
Algorithmic Modeling Cakes
This project was made for the presentation of new chocolate Ruby. The presentation was held in the center of Shanghai for two days. I needed to develop a unique form that would emphasize the unusual, new, bright, unforgettable taste of Ruby chocolate, and create a recipe where the main flavor element was this pink chocolate. The idea was to create a set of elements (cakes) that together would form a single composition. As a result, we got algorithmically modeled cake that consisted of 81 individual cakes, every single was unique in shape.
This composition was made using a graphical algorithm editor Grasshopper that can build form generators from the simple to the awe-inspiring. Inspyred by Matthew Shlian we took a pyramid and changed the tilt of each object and the area of each top plane, programming and scripting the set of cakes. All of the cakes are different.
It was a very risky project, but it worked well and everything turned out great at the presentation.
Inside: mousse with chocolate Ruby and meringue, ganache Ruby. I added a berry confit to the recipe to emphasize the berry flavor of chocolate and add accent. Also the biscuit with Ruby, with raspberries and of course a crispy layer with chocolate and royalty.
