I'm an Architecture student. Get me out of here.

From mansions in Applecross: presenting the performance of a domestic life

A SET TABLE

I have started looking at the idea of 'table manners' or a dinner party as apart of the
performance in domestic households. If you deconstruct a dinner table
it is evident as it shows certain qualities of the performance. I looked also
at the photographer Laura Letinsky and her series 'Morning and Melancholia'

" 'Morning and melancholia' pictures dirty dishes and messy counter tops, abandoned arrangement, stranded tidbits and crumbs: unexpectedly alluring tableaux of things and spaces we touch, alter, devour and discard. The pictures are still lifes, yet they don't aim for the traditional allure of bountiful meals that either away or attest to and unseen viewers consumption." -Laura Letinsky Taken from 'Eating Architecutre'- Horwitz and Singley (ed)

So where does this lead me in my project?

Basically I've now taken the microcosm of suburbia in Perth
andzoomed into this idea dinner table/dinner party, and in particular the structure of a meal.
I did my own little exploration (terrible camera- please someone get me one from my 21st)
at dinner last night.

Dinner table starts as a picture of perfection, exact. Cutlery
is placed in certain the correct place, there is no suggestion
of use/being used, rather we know how they are used for
how they are placed.
Prayer over the flood to bless it. Influence of
catholicism still apart of
suburban conformity.
The table is deconstructed. There is no longer order,
or precision. The table becomes an imprint of the
dinner that was consumed. So its going back to this idea
of order and disorder.

The table beings as order, then it falls apart into
disorder. So perhaps what Laura Letinsky is looking at
in her photos, she sees beauty in these used spaces.
Its like the disorder, or the exposed breaking through
this 'veneer' i'm trying to get my head around.

lets hope I dont grind my teeth into a pulp whilst I do so!

x Much

Jess.