Eat Your Words

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Abstract

The intention of this project is to investigate food as a system of communication.
It is an idea that began when a friend who had been away for a number of months saw a photograph of his fridge; he began a narrative of the recent events and visitors apparent to him from its contents. In storing the food and drink that played a central part in the communal events taking place in the apartment, the fridge was also a recorder of the social itinerary of the household. Our choice of food and the way we eat it betrays a great deal about us—from our background, culture, and social status to morals and lifestyle. We easily interpret it as surrogate emotion, and when shared with others it signifies the relationship we have with them.

The aim is to investigate this in greater depth, using semiotics to create a methodology for the interpretation of patterned behaviour that will help to create a deeper understanding of connotative codes and ultimately be applied to other areas of design. A questionnaire has been used to gather data to explore to explore some of the theories presented by the academic research—these include the trend towards eating alone, how knowledge of food convention is acquired, and the effect formality and intimacy have on a meal.

Today we purchase most of our food in a retail environment, we encounter it in pre-packaged form enveloped in the language of advertising which assigns further significance to the contents. Our knowledge of the conventions of food are no longer acquired solely through the family unit, instead it is gained from wide ranging exposure via the design and media industries, travel and eating outside the home. However, although interest in cooking is currently undergoing a renaissance, it is accompanied by greater consumption of ready-made, or convenience, food than ever before—indicative of a trend towards an increasingly post-culinary society.

The outcome of this project is formed from extrapolation of the gathered information, to produce a simple formula: food combined with ritual (categorised in terms of tribe, intimacy, formality and seduction) becomes communication.

The visual piece will present this in a static format using the range of symbols and codes that have evolved into a graphic visual style over the course of the project. The viewer effectively becomes involved in the discovery process by reading the equation and then investigating the supporting visual evidence, in this way the viewer is introduced to the concept of food as a system of communication in such a way that the process is revealed. This can be related to other areas of social intercourse including language and visual communication, and since these are fundamental to design this understanding will ultimately create a deeper understanding of the design process.

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