Interview with Studio VDR
- Daniel Weiss
- Dec 25, 2025
- 3 min read
A conversation with Studio VDR
Your project is often initially mistaken for a luxury butcher shop. Was that intentional?
Yes. That was actually crucial. As soon as it's clear that it's art, the perspective changes. Then people distance themselves, analyze, and categorize. We were interested in the moment before that. The moment when someone thinks: This is simply a very well-done shop.
When does this moment tip?
It varies. Some notice it from the packaging. Others only realize it when they look more closely and understand that nothing can be bought here. And some don't notice it for a surprisingly long time. That's perhaps the most interesting part.
Why meat?
Because meat is one of the last products where we accept a massive discrepancy between real costs and selling price. Everyone knows something is wrong – and yet the system works. Meat is cheap because almost all the associated costs are outsourced. To the soil, water, infrastructure. To the future.
The Cold Room portrays meat as a luxury. Is that a demand?
No. It's more of a shift. If you honestly factor in all the costs – water, land, feed, emissions, wastewater – then meat would be a luxury. Several hundred euros per kilogram. But that's not a utopia, it's a calculation. We wanted to show how absurdly normal it is that we don't do that.
Why this boutique aesthetic then?
Because it works. Luxury aesthetics create trust. They neutralize doubt. This has been evident in fashion for years. Fast fashion doesn't sell because people are unaware of the production conditions, but because they can ignore them. The surface is strong enough. That's precisely the logic we wanted to convey.
Many visitors say the room feels "too normal".
That's the greatest compliment. We didn't want to build a shock room. A slaughterhouse. A provocation. The Cold Room works because it blends seamlessly into familiar consumption spaces. It doesn't ask questions loudly. It simply stands there.
The packaging contains a lot of information, but no explanation. Why?
Because information doesn't automatically lead to an attitude. The numbers are available. You can read them. Or ignore them. Just like with clothes. Care instructions are there – and yet we still buy the item if it looks good.
What do you hope visitors will take away with them?
No realization. No guilty conscience. Perhaps just a brief moment of irritation. That quiet unease that only surfaces later. On the way home. Or during the next shopping trip.
Why is there no real meat part of the installation?
Because real meat would shift everything. It would be morally charged, shocking, perhaps even distracting. We weren't concerned with suffering, but with its absence.
What does that mean?
The system works precisely because the real thing is missing. No smell, no heat, no animal – only product, packaging, surface. The Cold Room doesn't show meat, but what remains when everything unpleasant has been removed.
So, a deliberate omission?
Yes. The missing element is the substance. Without real meat, only the texture remains – and that's harder to stomach. You realize how little it takes to make something marketable.
In the end, is it less about meat and more about consumption?
Meat is the raw material. The underlying question is more general: How cheap can something be before we stop thinking about what it really costs?
DWHH.art is the personal art project of Daniel Weiss – a collaboration between humans and AI. All stories and images are fictional – created with artificial intelligence, told with human imagination. For all those who believe that beauty is allowed to think.
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