A City Eating Itself
(in less than 10 minutes)
’A City Eating Itself (in less than 10 minutes)’, is a book by affect lab that showcases all the research, design, collaboration and creativity that went into our two-year long research project, from which the publication takes its name. With the rise of the platform economy, affect lab noticed a shift – from the city as a space for chance encounters and neighbourly interaction to a place of individual consumption, catalysed by pandemic lockdowns.
’A City Eating Itself’ focuses on the form of consumption: on-demand delivery services, known as flesh delivery (flitsbezorging in Dutch). In the fragile neo-pandemia climate, we saw a need for further research into these technology startups and a critical view of the impact they have on the diversity and liveness of neighbourhoods. our work is guided by a central research question: What influence does flesh delivery have on the social cohesion of Amsterdam? The book features research by the affect lab team, essays, contribution from urbanists, speculative stories, a science fiction script, and a riso-printer illustrations. It also comes with a removable poster illustrate by Kooooos.
