Brooklyn artist’s deep-fried gadgets generate buzz

June 6, 2012 Brooklyn Eagle Staff
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By Mary Frost

Brooklyn Daily Eagle

WILLIAMSBURG — What does a deep-fried iPad look like?

Brooklyn art and fashion photographer Henry Hargreaves has fried up a tasty batch of iPads, iPods and laptops, and it seems to have set off a visceral reaction among tech users.

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“So awesome — a total win,” said Isaac Fen, a media worker in DUMBO, taking part in the Brooklyn Eagle’s informal poll. “It makes a point about consumerism.”

“It looks like food. I like it,” said another man, sounding somewhat bemused.Photo by Henry Hargreaves; Caitlin Levin, food stylist

“It looks good, like advertising — but it’s hipster crap,” said another.

Like them or not, Hargreaves’ deep-fried gadgets have been generating buzz, with mentions on tech blogs and the Huffington Post. So the Eagle asked Hargreaves — who came to Williamsburg via New Zealand — to explain why he fries this stuff.

“I like experimenting with food and presenting it in a way that we are not used to seeing it,” he said on Tuesday. “If you look back through my other work, I like the result when two very separate worlds collide, here electronics and deep frying.”

No actual working electronics were harmed in the making of the art, Hargreaves said. “I’m not rich enough or brave enough to drop them in 400-degree cooking oil and see how a lithium battery reacts. I recreated them from foam core.” Food stylist Caitlin Levin helped make the pieces look delicious. (See more photos at henryhargreaves.com.)

Hargreaves says that people’s reactions have been “a little bit of everything.

“I just hope it puts a smile on some people’s faces.”


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