Survey

I created a survey using survey gizmo. The survey was sent out to a random selection of people from my mailing list. The purpose of the survey was to find out various activities people indulge in relating to their eating habits. Below are a few questions I asked:

1. Where do you eat your everyday meals?

2. List a few objects you interact with during meals?

3. Apart from eating what other activities/ tasks do you do at the table?

4.Who do you eat your daily meals with.

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/98775/conversations-at-the-dining-table

above is the link to fill the survey.

early inspiration

The plates have statics about hunger and food related issues printed on them, using heat sensitive inks the messages are revealed once the food is almost finished.
Below are couple of Rafael Morgan's plates



http://www.rafaelmorgan.com/2008/01/hunger-for-truth-plate.html

Design Charette 2007

The content for this intervention at the dining table was developed briefly in a design charette. In the Spring of 2007, we had a day long design charette. The entire Design department participated. We invited a local activist Herb Barbolet as a guest speaker and to deliver a project brief.

The theme was:
Design the modern dinner table.

Our group of 7/8 participants made a series of table cloths which displayed and encouraged social interactions; in terms of conversations at the dinner table. The content was generated in an arbitrary manner, appropriating themes and scenarios from the everyday social setting. We made 6/ 7 categories:

Friends: potluck
Family dinner
Business lunch
Dinner for 2
Eating alone

There were various prompts and topics to discuss/ talk printed on the table cloths in order to facilitate and help engage in conversations. Below are a couple layouts of the table cloths.

The family dinner:



The business lunch:

Introduction

This project is about the social interaction and engagement at the dinning table.

What will I be making?

For the course of this semester I propose to make a set of object for the dinning table/ area which would celebrate and encourage conversations.

Who will I be making this for?

People who don’t engage in conversations at the table, and want to.
People who have trouble talking to their kids at the table.
Couples who are distracted or don’t have much to talk at the table.
Any group of people in a domestic environment who want to talk at while eating.

A few other quires:
What is the role of conversations during meal?
What is the significance or eating together?
What role do conversations play at the dinning table?
What opportunities can created through social interactions at the eating place?
What is the role of tableware in social dinning?
How Can objects make you communicate and encourage conversations at the table?

Finding a Grad Project

I had been mulling over topics and themes, problems and opportunities, products and systems to tackle an 'interesting' Grad project. During Christmas break I brainstormed a few titles with my roommates:

- Tableware for baby animals (to create awareness).
- The relationship of bottles through our lives; from birth to the end.
- Tableware for experienced based eating (continuation of last semester)
- Table Talks: encouraging interaction at dinner through objects.
And there were a number of others.

While I was thinking about the above opportunities, I was also considering mundane elements of domestic objects. Like legs and feet of tables, chairs, stools, lamps etc. What is their relationship to the objects and to the space they dwell in. This got me thinking to the objects themselves and to a few questions kept coming up:

1. Why will I be making this object/ objects?
2. Who will this object/intervention be for?

And still I did not get anywhere.

Then I started looking at some past projects and charettes I participated in. A day long project, at which the theme was to design the modern dining table, seemed fruitful enough to appropriate the idea and develop it as a term long Grad project.