Promise and Ontological Ambiguity in theIn vitroMeat Imagescape: From Laboratory Myotubes to the Cultured Burger

Abstract

In vitro meat (IVM), also known as cultured meat, involves growing cells into muscle tissue to be eaten as food. The technology had its most high-profile moment in 2013 when a cultured burger was cooked and tasted in a press conference. Images of the burger featured in the international media and were circulated across the Internet. These images—literally marks on a two-dimensional surface—do important work in establishing what IVM is and what it can do. A combination of visual semiotics and narrative analysis shows that images of IVM afford readings of their story that are co-created by the viewer. Before the cultured burger, during 2011, images of IVM fell into four distinct categories: cell images, tissue images, flowcharts, and meat in a dish images. The narrative infrastructure of each image type affords different interpretations of what IVM can accomplish and what it is. The 2013 cultured burger images both draw upon and depart from these image types in an attempt to present IVM as a normal food stuff, and as ‘matter in place’ when placed on the plate. The analysis of individual images and the collection of images about a certain object or subject—known as the imagescape—is a productive approach to understanding the ontology and promise of IVM and is applicable to other areas of social life.

Bringing cultured meat to market: Technical, socio-political, and regulatory challenges in cellular agriculture

“…Numerous narratives in favour of cultured meat and other alternative proteins have emphasised the ability for these novel foods to ‘disrupt’, and thus overcome, the negative impacts associated with conventional livestock production. However, cultured meat has to date existed predominantly in promissory narratives rather than in tangible, material forms ( Jönsson, 2016 ; Stephens & Ruivenkamp, 2016 ; Stephens, King, & Lyall, 2018 ). The abundance of this aspiration rhetoric (fuelled largely by corporate and media actors) coupled with the relative lack of scientific assessments, such as Life Cycle Assessments, has made for an ambiguous and at-times prematurely optimistic discourse around cultured meat.…”

‘I Just Want It to Be Done, Done, Done!’ Food Tracking Apps, Affects, and Agential Capacities

“…App thing-power begins with the developers' imagined uses of the app and the way it is presented and promoted on forums such as the app stores and industry blogs, or government sites such as the UK's National Health Service Apps Library. Certain promissory narratives [18] are articulated on these sites, in which apps are portrayed in often hyperbolic ways as routes to better health, the amelioration of illness and disease [11], and in the case of food-tracking apps, better management of body weight, nutrition, or chronic illness. Health-related apps, therefore, may be considered objects that are invested with hope and desire related to idealised embodiment [11,14].…”

Ventajas y desventajas del cultivo de carne in vitro: perspectivas desde la seguridad alimentaria

“…c) Preocupación de diversos sectores sociales hacia el impacto negativo de la ganadería sobre el medio ambiente (uso excesivo de agua, tierra y energía por parte de la ganadería extensiva) (7). d) Aspectos éticos del sector industrial y la sociedad civil relacionados con el aseguramiento del bienestar animal (8). e) Necesidad creciente por parte de la industria cár-nica para innovar, generando productos que permitan el máximo aprovechamiento de la materia prima y cumplan con las expectativas del público en torno a ser saludables e inocuos (9).…”