Tamalli Space Charros
Tamalli Space Charros
Tamalli Space Charros Collective (TSCC) is an interdisciplinary business project that brings multimedia art and Mexican cuisine into a new arena where boundaries are meant to be crossed in order to explore and reinvent Chicago's food scene and through a social network. "Tamalli Space Charros" is a food truck launched in January 2011 as a "wireless tamaleria" using twitter as its main tool to offer tamales in the streets of Chicago. Inspired by the 1920's Mexican avant garde "stridentist movement" and sci-fi Mexican wrestling films from the 1960's TSCC will offer "tamales de mole" surrounded by Mexican pop culture kitsch elements. After winning one of the 2010 Propeller Fund grants TSCC brought to Chicago in November 2010 the "tamalespaceship", a 1978 food truck from Lenox, Illinois bought on Ebay.
TSCC is a long term performance art project addressing the interaction among body, food, machines, wireless poetry and the city. “Stridentists” used technology as their motto and believed in bringing Mexico in to a modern era of factories, fast cars, trains, machines and above all, the radio. Three decades later wrestling kitsch films showed surreal Mexican Wrestling heroes in Sci-fi trips to the outer space. Manuel Maples Arce, who wrote the 1st “Stridentist Manifesto” in 1921, recruited poets, visual artists and musicians to create a new type of art against the traditional schools of Mexican art like Naturalism and Romanticism. The second Stridentist Manifesto was signed by German List Arzubide with the slogan “VIVA EL MOLE DE GUAJOLOTE!” (LONG LIVE THE TURKEY MOLE!), the most traditional dish from Mexico. TSCC plans to react against conventional and repeated Mexican clichés in Mexican restaurants. “Tamalli Space Charros” will cook for Chicago nutritious, affordable and traditional market food from Mexico: “tamalli” (“wrapped food” in Nahuatl) along with the most festive sauce in Mexico: “molli” (“cooking sauce” in Nahuatl). In contemporary Mexico tamales are still one of the daily sources of energy for contemporary Mexicans outside the subway stations, a tradition seen also in a few Chicago CTA stations. Street Mexican food in Chicago serves the most variety in Pilsen, a neighborhood occupied by Mexican workers who helped with the progress of Chicago by working in railroads, slaughters and factories. Strident poet Kyn Kintaniya wrote in one of his poems: “last whispers of cut off pigs in Chicago”. Fermin Revueltas, stridnetist musician, lived in Chicago from 1919 to 1925.
The “Tamalli Space Charros” food truck project will explore a new way to address aesthetical elements to the actions created from street food consumption. Social networks will lead consumers to urban trips in search of tamales. The “Tamalli Space Charros” will ride their 1978 Chevy truck, featuring the “Stridentist Charro” who will suggest some wine pairings for the tamales and mole sauces through a digital menu, plus, he will perform live occasionally by wearing a futuristic “Charro” hat and reading stridentist poems while tamales are being served. TSCC will create on its second stage the performance art piece "Wireless Molli 201.1", a performance art dinner to be executed at Kitchen Chicago. In this piece spectators will be part of a collective catharsis as they interact with the performers in a meal ritual. There won’t be any barriers between food providers and patrons, they will be surrounded by a Sci-fi, kitsch atmosphere where a visual dinner will turn into a collective rite where spectators will be encouraged to tweet live about what they’re eating and seeing so the piece could be shared to other audiences as a part of a true “cosmopolitan act”. Dionysian elements and fine dining atmosphere will be provided to those who will be invited to the performance through twitter. TSCC follows the emergent systems of food marketing and distribution in Chicago in a wireless channel of actions and reactions which will lead to the reinterpretation of new shapes of language.
Tamalli Space Charros Collective:
Omar Ureña Ximénez, visual artist (Chicago)
Tamatz Juanes, multimedia artist (Mexico City)
Armando Morales, graphic designer (Mexico City)
Aztlán Cardinal, performance artist (Chicago)
Saúl Aguirre, visual artist (Chicago)
Luis Humberto Valadez, poet (Chicago)
Pocha Catalana, performance artist (Barcelona)
Irradiador, musicians (Mexico City)
Luis Muñoz, architect (Mexico City)
To track the location of the tamalespaceship, please follow the group on twitter and facebook
PROMO VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R80A-lG4crg
PRESS : http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/best-theoretical-food-truck/BestOf?oid=2016446
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2011/Best-of-Chicago-2011-Food-and-Drink/
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/best-food-truck/BestOf?oid=4088479
