HOW FERMENTATION AND ROLEPLAY CAN SHIFT YOUR PERSPECTIVE

On taking a role in designing a multi-species future

November 2026

Author: Stéphanie Binet

English

Bachelor Thesis

Food Preservation Fermentation Worlding Design Futures

The overwhelming fear and uncertainty about the future are growing every day. In addition to more radical attempts to make the world a better place, such as participating in political actions, I have always sought out more everyday, low-threshold options as well.

In one of my first performance pieces called Stone Soup (2025), I attempted to examine the kitchen as a microcosm of political negotiation systems: Two groups of (strangers) had to negotiate their own needs against those of the other group regarding resources, methods, and the distribution of roles in a shared cooking process. It was fascinating to observe how the kitchen became a space in which roles, responsibilities and hierarchies were constantly negotiated and reproduced. What might initially appear as a practical division of tasks revealed itself as something much more political: an interplay of power, care, expectations and learned behaviours. The kitchen, in this sense, became a microcosm in which broader social structures were not only reflected but actively performed, challenged and, at times, renegotiated.

In a second performance, Open Till Seven (2025), I explored the table, and more specifically the kitchen table, as a social and political space for negotiation. I was interested in how its physical arrangement shapes who comes together, who gets to participate, and under what conditions. Who gets to participate in negotiations, and whose voices are heard, is always shaped by specific conditions and structures. The performance therefore examined the threshold between symbolic gestures and actual negotiation, asking which conditions enable or hinder a shift from one to the other. The performance also positioned itself as a kind of “kitchen table”: an artistic space for negotiation that, like the physical table, brings people together but also determines who gets invited to participate in the first place. It thus questioned not only who gets a seat at the table, but also whether artistic formats such as performance can move beyond the symbolic staging of negotiation to actually initiate and facilitate it.

In my bachelor’s thesis Food for Thought. Von Fermentation und anderen Praktiken der Weltgestaltung (2026)¹, I sought a way to present the kitchen as a political space without getting bogged down in symbolism. In my theoretical exploration, I situated kitchen work and the handling of food within an expanded concept of design; one that understands design not merely as the creation of objects, but also as the active shaping of (future) realities. How working with food ought to shape/ design futures, I argue as follows:

For whoever preserves something simultaneously decides what will be left behind, what will be carried on and what will be transfromed2. Such decisions are by no means neutral, but are always political as well, which is evident, for example, in the handling of cultural heritage: institutional and societal processes of negotiation determine which material and immaterial forms of expression are deemed worthy of preservation and will be preserved for future generations3. This process determines not only what endures from the past, but also which perspectives and values will shape our future understanding of culture and which will vanish from the collective memory4. So, I conclude, the following propositions can therefore be put forward:

Decisions about what is preserved, transformed, or left behind imply values and intentions5.
Decisions about what is preserved simultaneously determine what will be carried forward into the future and thereby actively shape it⁶.
Food preservation should therefore not be understood merely as a technical practice, but rather as a cultural and creative act through which individuals and collectives alike actively participate in the constitution and transformation of their lived world⁷.

While food preservation is a concrete form of preservation, other actions can also have a preservative effect by reproducing certain values, norms, or social ideas and thereby passing them on to the future.

“Was bewahren wir? Was lassen wir zurück? Was transformieren wir?”
(Engl.: “What do we preserve? What do we leave behind? What do we transform?”), Stéphanie Binet, Cyanotopie, 2026
To illustrate this, I decided to develop a playful approach. By redefining the role of the cook, I aim to make visible how their everyday practices shape the future. Beyond this, the example seeks to highlight the political agency embedded in a variety of everday practices and use this awareness as a starting point for actively negotiating their chain of effects.

To do so, I used the LARP (Live-Action Role-Playing) method. LARP is a form of role-playing in which all participants create a so-called LARP-character according to specific rules that depend on the rules of the particular LARP in which they are participating⁸. My decision to examine LARPing as a method, rather than resorting to performance, is based on the different possibilities offered by both approaches⁹. While, in my understanding, performance is conceived more as a time-limited action situated within an artistic context and carries the risk that its impact remains confined to the symbolic level, failing to generate any lasting agency beyond the moment of the performance, LARP enables the development and shared experience of entire worlds with their own rules, roles, and social structures¹⁰. This creates an immersive, collectively shaped space of experience that can also draw on fantastical or magical elements, and in which alternative forms of coexistence are not merely depicted but can be tested within a jointly developed world¹¹.

Central to this type of play is the creation and assignment of roles¹². I, too, draw on role-playing for this purpose, although in an adapted form: Instead of developing new roles, I propose reinterpreting existing ones. So if we go back into the sphere of the kitchen, the role of the cook is reinterpreted¹³. To do this, we must first ask what the tasks of this role are and then examine its impact. So if a cook ferments soemthing, we could say the following:

A cook who ferments is not only a cook, but also a

Collector: decides what is left behind and what is kept or transformed in the future
Fermenter: initiates transformation
Regulator: attempts to control the ongoing processes¹⁴

Although the cook attempts to steer the process (e.g. of fermentation) as a regulator, this example illustrates that the cook is not the sole actor in the process: its outcome depends largely on the activity of the microorganisms involved. They are thus not merely passive components, but independent agents who, as contaminators, play a decisive role in shaping the fermentation process.

Contaminator: introduces disruption, chance, and the foreign¹⁵

This shift in roles takes into account not only the various possibilities for action and the effects of human actors, but also those of non-human actors. The perspective thus moves away from an exclusively human-centered understanding of agency and focuses on a relational framework in which human and non-human actors are interconnected and jointly generate processes.

Further on, this shift in perspective reveals the consequences that lie behind seemingly mundane activities.

In my thsis, refering to Adriana Gallo’s Article COOKING FOR THE END OF THE WORLDON PREPPERS AND PRESERVATION, I I contrast two fundamental approaches to food preparation to illustrate this.
Although these processes cannot be clearly distinguished from one another in practice and often overlap, I introduce them as contrasting concepts to make different approaches to food handling and their implications for the future more tangible.

Gallo describes in her article two basic types of preserved foods that can be distinguished based on whether natural processes are supported or inhibited¹⁶. The first category includes traditionally preserved foods, in which processes such as fermentation, ripening, and microbial transformation are deliberately allowed to occur and utilized¹⁷. Through interaction with other organisms, this creates a vitality based on controlled decomposition that inherently includes the potential for spoilage¹⁸. The second category, by contrast, aims to halt such processes through methods such as canning, freezing, or industrial processing, thereby placing food in a stable, inactive state¹⁹. This ranges from canned goods to highly processed products such as MREs or astronaut food and is historically closely linked to industrial and military technologies²⁰.
Adriana Gallo understands the various techniques of preservation as “worlding” ²¹ — as a process in which one actively determines which material and narrative elements are carried over into future worlds [...]²². The text shows that different methods of preservation each express specific attitudes²³.

Building on this foundation, I then would go on to derive specific worldviews from the respective value systems, each characterized by its own values, logic, and patterns of action, based on 0ct0pus’s Guide to Worlding:

WORLD 1: A WORLD IN COMMON²⁴ : Based on fermentation as a frame of reference²⁵

Open-ended process: The concept of a final state is replaced by the idea of a constantly ongoing process.
Coexistence with nature: All entities and their environment are understood as a vast network; cycles are taken into account; the environment is not viewed merely as a resource to be controlled.
Logic of time: Time does not follow a linear logic.
Attitude toward risk: The possibility of failure is acknowledged and understood as part of the process; control over the course of a process does not lie solely with humans; responsibility is shared.
The future as an open transformation in which change and adaptation are part of the system.

WORLD 2 : A COMMON WORLD²⁶ : Based on preservation as a frame of reference²⁷

Openness of Processes: The world is constituted by controlled, stable, and standardized states.
Coexistence with Nature: Nature is subjugated, its processes neutralized, and the autonomy of other actors is negated.
Temporal logic: Time follows a linear logic; it is plannable and predictable.
Attitude toward risk: The possibility of failure is minimized; the world promises security and predictability.
The future as a means of securing existing conditions.

With that, I sought to show that food preservation should not be understood merely as a technical practice, but rather as a cultural and creative act through which both individuals and communities actively participate in shaping and transforming their lived world²⁸.

The development and elaboration of these worlds based on the various spheres of influence of a cook served as a reference example for creating a general guide that helps examine a wide variety of roles in terms of their influence and ability to shape the future.

I deliberately do not position this guide as a performance manual, but rather, as the subtitle already makes clear, as a design guide. This is based on an expanded understanding of design that does not limit design to the creation of objects, but rather conceives of it as a starting point for social and societal action and thought²⁹. This understanding is central to my work, as it views design as an opportunity to engage with existing lived environments and actively shape alternative futures³⁰. Cultural and design education can thus help empower individuals and society to critically explore their lived environments and actively shape the future³¹.

So to conclude, in my thesis I sought to demonstrate, through the example of food preservation and the development of two future scenarios, that the processes of designing our future(s) are already at work in seemingly mundane, everyday practices³². And as for the question, which of the proposed secanrios i’m rooting for, I’ll let the queen herself speak:

“Staying with the trouble requires making oddkin; that is, we require each other in unexpected collaborations and combinations, in hot compost piles. We become with each other or not at all.”³³

(1) Binet, S. (2026). Food for thought. Von Fermentation und anderen Praktiken der Weltgestaltung. Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst fhnw, Basel

All transations made from German to English by Stéphanie Binet

Titel translates to: Food for Thought. On Fermentation and Other Practices of Shaping the World.

(2) ebd. p. 11
(3) ebd., p. 11
(4) ebd., p. 11

(5) ebd., p. 12
(6) ebd., p. 12
(7) ebd., p. 12

(8)Binet, 2026, p. 23
(9) ebd., p. 23
(10) ebd., p. 23
(11) ebd., p. 23

(12) ebd., p. 23
(13) ebd., p. 23

(14) Whole list:
Binet, S. (2026a). Build a World. Not a Perfromance Guide. Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst fhnw, Basel, p. 15

(15) ebd., p.15

(16) Binet, 2026, p. 20; Gallo, 2022
(17) ebd.
(18) ebd.
(19) ebd.
(20) ebd.
(21) ebd.
(22) ebd.
(23) ebd.

(24) A COMMON WORLD

“A common world” refers to the creation of a shared world through standardization. Here, commonality is created through homogenization: the same standards, the same ways of life, and the same criteria for evaluation. Difference is reduced, integrated, or rendered invisible. In this context, “common” means that everyone operates within the same system, following the same rules (0ct0p0s; Binet, 2026a, p. 11)

(25) Whole List from: Binet, 2026a, p. 46 - 50

(26) A WORLD IN COMMON

“A World in Common,” on the other hand, conceives of the common as something that emerges from among differences. A world is that which is negotiated among the entities inhabiting it and manifests itself through their actions and, above all, their relationships (12). In this way, differences are recognized and treated as such. This rejects a logic of demarcation and proposes a relational one (0ct0p0s; Binet, 2026a, p. 10).

(27) Whole List from: Binet, 2026a, p. 52 - 55.

(28) Binet, 2026, p. 11

(29) Binet, 2026, p. 15 -16 ; Park 2016
(30) ebd.
(31) ebd.

(32) Binet, 2026, p. 50

(33) Binet, 2026, p. 49; Haraway, 2016

Exibiton Overview (German)
Interview with Radio X (Swiss German)

*GALLERY*

Source Overview

Binet, S. (2026). Food for Thought. Von Fermentation und anderen Praktiken der Weltgestaltung. Hochschule für
Gestaltung und Kunst fhnw, Basel.

Binet, S. (2026a), Build a World. Not a Perfromance Guide. Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst fhnw, Basel.

Gallo, A. (2022, Oktober 18). Cooking for the End of the World. MOLD. Designing the Future of Food.
https://thisismold.com/series/convivial-cosmogonies/on-preppers-and-preservation

Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the Trouble. Making Kin in the Cthulucene. Duke University Press.

octopos. (o. J.). Concieve worlds. Abgerufen 1. April 2026, von https://0ct0p0s.net

Park, J. H. (2016). Didaktik des Design. Kopaed.