Faculty of Arts & Science

Digital Futures

Kayli Chow

Be Our Guest

Be Our Guest is a performance piece driven by audience participation and improvisation, created by Hafsa Ahmad, Eden Bridge-Cook, and Kayli Chow. We invite audience members to sit at a table carved out and set by a projected image and experience a dollhouse-like improvisation of a dinner table with us. Through this experience, we explore the dynamics of power, relationships, and intimacy at family dinners, and bring the audience to our dinner tables.

“The piece was inspired by Deep Throat (1996) by Mona Hatoum in its use of projections onto a table and plates. It was also inspired by Le Petit Chef’s commercial use of projections as a tool for atmosphere and storytelling. Overall, we wanted to use light and projections to carve out and transform a space, and also put the focus of our project not on the technical aspects, but on the content and themes.The design of this project was intended to emulate the real atmospheres and experiences of our dinner table. The positioning of the plates, the images of the food, and the projected background of the tablecloth all emulate elements of our dinner tables. In particular, the sounds in the backgrounds are actual recorded sounds of our dinners, and the food is 3D-scanned from actual food items present during dinner. The usage of real food was a design choice made after our first critique, where we felt an added aroma and the act of food sharing would bring more depth and immersion to the audience’s experience.The test install we did allowed us to get better at setting up and installing our projection setup. From our experiences and the feedback we received, we increased the length of each projection segment and decreased the length of wait time in between for a more seamless experience. We also brought in real food for an increased sensory element and switched to proper speakers so the sound could be better projected throughout the room. Some technical issues were also ironed out for the final project that was present in the test installation.”