Spatula&Barcode (Laurie Beth Clark and Michael Peterson) makes social practice art, creating variously-scaled performative gatherings around the central values of commensality, conviviality, and criticality.
Spatula&Barcode combines many activities in our projects: cooking and eating, interviews and interactions, social media, photography, writing, scholarship, and public events. Spatula&Barcode is the umbrella name for the work that Michael Peterson and Laurie Beth Clark make together, but we often say that anyone who works with us on one of the projects is a part of Spatula&Barcode.
In our projects the performance of place and of hospitality are central. Most projects involve conversation and some form of playful gift or souvenir (“swag”). While most Spatula&Barcode projects involve food in some way, their recent series Foodways directly explores the movements of food and food culture.
Spatula&Barcode was founded in 2008 by Laurie Beth Clark and Michael Peterson. Clark and Peterson are both Professors of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where Peterson is also faculty in Interdisciplinary Theatre Studies and Clark directs the Center for Visual Cultures.