Meal in the Dark
I messaged 5 people who I knew didn't know each other to organise a meal in the dark. For this experiment, I was interested in:
1. strangers' interactions with each other in an unusual setting (the dark)
2. the dark: for manipulating the senses, with a main focus on taste
3. experimenting where a piece becomes more of a social experiment or an art piece
4. ways of documentation (this was tricky)!
Cooking until 5am - my flatmate wasn't allowed to see or suspect what she was going to be eating.
Early morning cooking playlist:
The Event:
Each participant had a little challenge each, as well as eating in the dark.
- 1 plate balanced ontop of 3 marbles
- 2 plates placed ontop of a blob of blu tak
- 1 person has only a tiny teaspoon to eat with
- 1 person has their hands tied with string to the seat
The purpose for these little interventions was to add an element of control within the event so that the interractions/happenings throughout weren't left to complete chance. Also I'm trying to be aware of the line between a social experiment and an art piece, I felt that this would be one way of playing about with this 'fine line'.
Serving the meal:
I'm interested at the moment in manipulating the senses, so within this experiment I wanted to use the dark as a tool to play with the participants perceptions of the food, focussing particularly on taste. I served the same meal for everyone: rice, tarka dahl and a smoked paprika pancake with apple cinnamon tempura and maple cocoa dipping sauce. I wanted a variety of strong flavours within the meal because when one sense is lost (the sight in this case) it heightens other senses. However, as a little extra experimental touch, I served the tarka dahl twice; one serving was warm and the other was cold. When interviewing the 5 participants after the meal, intrestingly they thought that two different curries were served, so it was interesting how the variety in temperature did alter their perceptions of taste.
Another element I was experimenting with in this piece was their perception of time. I purposefully didn't tell anyone how long the meal would last and timed 30 minutes. I listened in after the first timer went off and could hear them all laughing so I decided to leave them for ten more minutes. A total of 37 minutes into the experiment, one of the participants came out to find me becasue they were wondering if I'd forgotten about them.
The writing from the participants when still in the dark:
Conversation with them afterwards:
E: noticing the noises around the room (hum of the fan, upstairs etc.) - were they inentional recordings I'd set or natural sounds within the environment?
M: (who was given the tiny teaspon) "I spent ages looking for the fork, I thought there had to be one somewhere"
M: "I didn't want to bring up my little challenge [hands being tied to the chair] incase it seemed annoying to people or like I was moaning... so I waited a bit to bring it up... It was also a good conversation starter."
G: "I think I'd concentrate more on the taste of the food if there was light"
M: "yeah, I felt like I concentrated way more on the texture of the food in the dark than the taste."
Me: "What did you think of the curries?"
M: "They were nice, but you could tell they were different"
Me: "that's interesting because they were actually the same, one was just hot and one was cold"
E: "Really?! God"
M: "So it was the same on either side of the plate?"
Conclusion:
I found this a fun piece to work on. It was interesting to hear how I managed to play about with people's perceptions and how everyone interracted with each other. Even though I tried to include a variety of friends who study different topics (Psychology, Engineering, Economics and 2 Art students from year 2 and 3) it seemed that the art students were more comfortable in this environment, but I guess that's to be expected within the context of where the experiment was set; in the LICA downstairs installation space. However, on a personal note, I don't think that I want to carry on with this use of food in the dark. I found that documentation was particularly hard to get from the experiment, also I really wanted to be a part of it, but obviously that wouldn't have been appropriate for this task. I think that from here, I will explore the use of other senses and how they are changed with the use of dark... whilst also keeping the performance/event element as a line of enquiry.