alicekellillustration-blog

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After my own Tea with Stangers expirience I met up with Fabian, a film maker in London who had also been on a few TWS events and done some filming around it. It was interesting hearing another persons thoughts on TWS from a creative point a view, here is a link to Fabians blog he posted about his impression of TWS

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Rituals 

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Presentation Feedback

The Dinner Table *Pass the salt*

 Consider: Mukbang, media exploiting eating together - is this the modern way to eat?

 What is the value of eating together?

 Explore the family dynamic - highlights the tensions within a family.  

Look into families of the future. Do we come together in other ways/places? 

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Mukbang from Korean meokbang "eating broadcast" is an craze in which a host eats large quantities of food while interacting with their audience through a webcast. It became popular in South Korea in the 2010s and videos on youtube today are still reaching views in the millions. Foods ranging from pizza to noodles are consumed in front of a camera for an internet audience who pay or not, depending on which platform one is watching. In each broadcast, a host will often interact with their viewers through online chatrooms. Many hosts generate revenue through mukbang, by accepting donations or working  with advertising networks. I think this has become so popular as it emulates the feeling of eating together, especially for young hard working Korean’s who maybe live alone and crave the normality of a human interaction over the dinner table.

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Bella Maniera is a collection of table textiles by French design firm Mr. & Mr. inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper.

The collection includes 13 placemats or three table runners, bringing to life that famous dinner in a playful manner.

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pages from “Food Player” Ginko Press Publishing, specifically focussing on contemporary arts approach to using food and the dinner table in art as as a material  

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Food, especially eating together is used frequently in animated mediums. Not only does it show characters closeness and relationships with each other, it shows the characters in a natural state where we often see them with their guards down, therefore we relate more strongly to them. We also feel more connection to the characters as they enjoy the basic social need to eat together, making them seem more “real”.  The representation of food in animated features varies massively for example in Studio Ghibli features such as the one shown above, a snip from “up on puppy hill” where we see delicious food being consumed over what is clearly a mixed atmosphere. Whereas, more comically in the Simpsons the dinner table is often a place for hectic family drama and conflict. 

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Fideli Sundqvist, Breakfast.

The work is a reinterpretation of classic still life paintings, in which the artists have replaced the natural objects usually paired with man-made items in still lives with folded paper. The goal of the artist was to force the viewer to pause and recognise that something but different, while still presenting images as beautiful as the 18th century paintings that inspired them. I really like the idea of questioning something as regular and almost ritual of eating at the dinner table and making the audience reconsider this normality. 

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Tantalus Dinner, Ioli Sifakaki 

The designer cast gerself as a ceramic table ware set and invited 12 men to sit around the table and eat from her body, creating a different version if the last supper. By casting herself, she copied, dismantled and offered parts of body to the guests in order to provoke new relationships between the maker and the user. Ceramic objects are often related to rituals because they bear a remarkable resemblance to the purity and smoothness of human flesh. The ceramic piece have a very human texture of ��goose pimple”, which she captured by melting ice cubes onto her skin when casting herself. 

The work is named Tantalus, a king from an ancient greek myth that cut his son into pieces and offered it to the gods.

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Edward Scissor hands

In the dinner scene I am interested in the physical barrier the hands creates between Edward and the food and how this then evolves into a social segregation between him and the rest of the people around the table. I wonder if this 

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Erro- Food landscape, 1964

The repetition of identical forms suggests that food is no longer the imperfect product of natural activity, but the standardize outcome of industrial process. The obsessive crowding together of the food echoes the display of goods in modern supermarkets. 

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I am intrigued by the subtle mannerisms that define us, in previous projects I have often sought out observing peoples behaviour and tried to emulate this whether its been through drawing, collage or film.  The dinner table I feel is an effective vessel in which I can investigate the family dynamics, relationships, status etc. that surround it. It is such a widely shared experience yet varies so extremely from each individual. In my research I have found many different examples of how the stereotypical dinner table situation have been caricatured for the sake of humour and dramatic effect. I think this subtle observation of people would lend itself well to my style of image making especially moving image. Throughout the course i have become more familiar with the different approaches to image making and animation, in this project I would like to push this even further. In an attempt to represent the sheer scope of my chosen topic I want to push my work to new extremes and as well as using drawing heavily for research look into a broader sense of the word image making.

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One of thoughts turned to film and the media. I noticed that dinner scenes have become a major plot point device in todays cinema. I have decided to look at some of my favourite family dinner scenes. Such as The Incredibles

What I particularly like about this scene is the escalation of a mundane family dinner, into uncontrollable chaos.  The animators capture the micro behaviours and tangible tension that comes with a family argument that eventually spirals out of control. The super-human qualities of the characters become the caricature devices to show the different components each family member plays in the conflict. The mum being the peace maker with her outstretched arms trying to keep the feuding children apart, whereas the dad uses misguided strength and brawn to help the situation however just makes it worse. The whole situation is then immediately swept under the rug as soon the presence of an outsider (froszone), personifying the behind closed doors nature of each families problems.

Other examples of similar family dinner situations depicted in film and animation 

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The importance of family meal time- TED TALKS 

Heidi Weinstein talks about bringing the American family back to the dinner table. She discusses the importance of family meal times and its effects on children and parents alike. She stresses the importance of dinner times forming family identities and the extensive benefits family meal times has on children; doing better in school, less likely to take drugs, have higher self esteem just to name a few.

“dinner is when family happen”

A better family life leads to less tension at home and children are more open about their problems as well as keeping in touch with the world. She explains the excuses come from the parent and the children however need to be corrected and ignored with meal planning and team effort.

“life is busy”

“I work late”

“Im not hungry”

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Today the dining room table is usually adjacent to the kitchen for convenience, although in medieval times it was often on an entirely different floor level. Historically the dining room is furnished with a rather large dining table and a number of dining chairs; The first dining room tables were long, and portable, to accommodate all those in the castle. In the Middle Ages, the upper class and nobility in castles or large manor houses dined in the Great Hall. The family would sit at the head table on a raised platform, with the rest of the sitters arrayed in order of rank away from them. Tables in the great hall would tend to be long trestle tables with benches.  Both courses would offer a pottage plus a selection of meats, custards, tarts, and fruit. The first course tended to offer boiled meats, and the second, roasted or baked meats. Overly lavish and decorative table displays of castles, cathedrals, hunting scenes, made of marzipan and spun sugar would be the formal point of any large feast.

Contrastingly today we are fascinated by deconstructing the over lavish history surrounding dining and focussing on the minimal and conceptual ways of eating. Dan les Noire, (dining in the dark) is being marketed as a new experience where the sitters are in complete darkness, being hosted and served by the visually impaired. Described as a sensory experience that awakes your senses and enables you to completely re-evaluate your perception of taste and smell. Dining in the dark encourages the sitter to dive into their imagination to rediscover your senses and meet others.

It claims to kills preconceptions and brings a lot of interesting questions to your mind in a fun and surprising environment. Unlike other places this restaurant is totally devoid of vanity.

“a social experience where darkness frees inhibitions and fosters a conviviality without preconceptions. A human experience where those with visual impairments become our eyes and guides for a short time in an intriguing, sensual world.”

Personally, I think this concept is for the most part pretentious and pointless. If it wasn't for its work with visually aided charities I would be firmly against this while idea of dining in the dark and looking at the dining experience on its side. Despite this I would be quite interested to see how the family routine and preconceptions would be stripped back from the usual interactions around the dinner table, and whether this could release some of the tension in family meal time. 

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The Dinner Table

Eating communally is physiologically important, not only for children to understanding the natural pecking order of society but for those of all ages. Families that neglect to sit together and prefer a TV dinner over the traditional sitting at a table, lack communication and have more dysfunctional relationships. This is because the table is the ideal space for idle chatter, squabbling and joking. As well as an informal opportunity to address important family discussions of the past, present and future.

I am interested in how sitting together at the table can be a source of anxiety for some and a source of comfort for others. I am drawn to the contrast of how someone’s physical behaviour sitting with a group of friends sitting around a box of dominoes would compare to when they're surrounded by their whole family from different generations. For example posture, whether you’re slumped or upright, how you hold your knife and fork, how much food you eat etc. A good example of this is the stress that famously accompanies Christmas dinner, and the roles we all play to contribute and diffuse it.

With fast food delivery services such as deliveroo becoming increasingly more popular I want to question how this is impacting our wanting to cook. In addition how people of an older generation feel about the ritual of eating together being put on fast foreword to fit our progressively busy and selfish lives.  In addition how an atmosphere changes as soon as we are uplifted from our usual habitat, how eating in restaurant and more formal surroundings changes routine and approach to eating. I also want to look into how companies falsely advertise and exploit the feeling of comfort that comes with eating together. For example marketing “sharing packets” of crisps to emulate the feeling of social eating, whereas the reality might be causing overeating and hostile eating behaviours.

The dinner table is also used as an informal way of introducing new friends and partners into the family. For example a significant other would be invited to dinner as a unspoken milestone in a couples relationship. Likewise, how the outsider observes this unique environment of another families interactions. Just as noticeably as new additions, the space between people can have just as much of an impact on the dynamic of the dinner table. How do we react when a family member is missing or when someone else sits in “our spot”?

The idea of hierarchy is instilled in us from an early age such as being divided into the adults and children tables at an event.  I am interested in exploring the feeling of judgement and shame when we’re sat on “that” table, with the relatives or peers we don't want to be associated with. More commonly, the dinner table plays a key role in the dynamic of every family, from who cooks the meal to who starts eating first. For example in my house no one is allowed to touch their food until the person who prepared it has sat down as a sign of respect whereas I know for someone else this wouldn't matter at all.

Personally I associate the dinner table with family and our own unique quirks and customs, even the table surface has a unique fingerprint like surface describing every scratch mark and spill. Not just the surface but the shape of the table has a large impact on the interactions you have with people, once sat down you are committed to a certain radius of people. I want to consider how the different shapes could even challenge the space around the table, for example not committing to just one seat and introducing movement and change to the table. Or even looking at eastern culture when eating on the floor is widely common and there isn't a need for a table at all.