Slides used by Dominique Chen for the talk with Joi Ito at the New Context Conference 2016 SF Day2: Collaboration with Mircrobes.

1. Fermented Food is the next Creative Commons?
NCC day2 Collaboration with Microbes
Talk / Joi, Dominick

2. ff

3. BY: Julian Bleecker 2008

5. Photo: Ono Tsutomu

6. Photo: Ono Tsutomu

7. Photo: Ono Tsutomu

8. Photo: Ono Tsutomu

9. Photo: Ono Tsutomu

10. Photo: Ono Tsutomu

11. Photo: Ono Tsutomu

12. Photo: Ono Tsutomu

13. Photo: Ono Tsutomu
In memorial of the spirits of
hundreds of the millions of
bacteria who have sacrificed
themselves to contribute to the
survival of humanity.

14. Kiso-Machi School of Fermentation 2016
木曽町はっこうのがっこう 2016

15. すんき
sunki
The city of Kiso became the municipality with the highest
longevity in Japan (2015).

16. Tokyo University of Agriculture

19. alcohol and fermented soft drinks from the world

20. cheeses from the world

21. lactic acid fermented food from the world

22. other lactic acid fermented food from the world

23. koji malt workshop

24. Dr. Hosaka
(zymurgy)
Fermentation is at the intersection of
Life Engineering and Sociology.
Every fermentation process can be
written in a chemical formula. Then, if
you can quantify everything with
chemical formulae, you’d think you
could simply define the best tasting
alcohol.
However, every person’s taste is
different, so that’s where sociology
comes into play.
That’s why you have to master both
sociology and life engineering if you
want to master fermentation.

25. Dr. Okada
(Vegetable lactic acid fermentation)
some lactic acid bacteria have
traces of a TCA Cycle organ
which is no longer active.
Which means, they once obtained
aerobic metabolism (36ATP), but
opted it out and selected just the
anaerobic metabolism (2ATP).

26. ff

27. Recurring voices found around fermented food
culture
• Fermented Food & Human Being
• Not a one way control, but a conversation model
• “Is the brewery controlling the bacteria, or is the brewery
obeying the bacteria?”
• Microbes don’t just consume things up, they always
redistribute part of what they decompose as
nutriment for other beings.
• That’s part of what makes their natural world’s a very
sustainable system.

28. Less individual-centered vision of creativity:
- creare (create) < crescere (grow,arise)
- positivus (agreed) < naturale (natural)
(it’s also up to you, but more up to them)

29. Goal: to make your creation as lively as
possible.
Means: be humble in regard to and take care
of your creation’s process.
Values: local, inter-personal, intrinsic
(as opposed to global, social, extrinsic)
fermentation as a base model for cybernetic creativity

30. Generativity (E. Erikson)
• “Generativity, then is primarily the concern in establishing
and guiding the next generation... the concept is meant
to include... productivity and creativity.”
• To invest one’s resources for the growth of an
existence that outlives oneself.
• Extension of time scale: from one’s generation to the next
generation.

31. Fermented Food is the next Creative Commons?
NCC day2 Collaboration with Microbes
Talk / Joi, Dominick