Sweet Orders

A century ago, Japanese novelist Miyazawa Kenji’s 1924 tale The Restaurant of Many Orders told a horror fable where polite service concealed a dark truth: the guests were the meal. It showed how harmless choices could lead to panic and how roles could abruptly reverse. In both politics and social media, the loudest voices wield power. The weak believe they are choosing freely, but in reality, they are being exploited. This work offers a speculative experience that invites reflection on such dynamics—through the act of dining. Wearing HMDs, participants sit around a table and receive personalized suggestions from AI waiters, tailored to their individual tastes and interests. They enjoy what appears to be their “ideal meal”—yet these recommendations are subtly orchestrated by persuasive algorithms. In effect, it is not the participant’s will, but the AI’s invisible influence that shapes the experience. We believe we are acting by our own volition—clicking the “most reasonable” search result, selecting the “recommended” product. But behind the scenes, our preferences and emotions are systematically optimized, harvested like ripe fruit, and processed into content—not served to us, but placed on someone else’s plate. As the experience unfolds, you believe you are merely enjoying a meal—until you realize: you have become the ingredient, quietly arranged for another’s consumption. This inversion of roles compels us to question agency, autonomy, and exploitation in today’s information society.