We're Eating Gilbert Grape: Cinematic Exhibition Practice and Textual Gustation

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Universiteit van Amsterdam

Faculty of Humanities, Department of Media Studies MA: Preservation and

Presentation of the Moving Image

We’re Eating Gilbert Grape:

Cinematic Exhibition Practice and Textual Gustation

Lee Elmore

12179612

Supervisor: Floris Paalman

Second Reader: Eef Masson

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We’re Eating Gilbert Grape: Exhibition Practice and Textual Gustation

I was a child during what is now referred to as the Disney Renaissance. I consumed a steady diet of the so-called Disney classics: _{Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers, The Lion King, you} name it. Some of these films I haven’t seen in nearly twenty five years but I remember the animation style, some of the dialogue, and the general storylines for all of them. For all that I remember concerning the content of these movies, I only have one vivid memory of actually watching any of them.

My parents took my brother and I out one weekend for a matinee screening of _{The Lion}

King_{to a cinema I had never been to before. This was the first time I had ever encountered a}

movie theater serving food that fell outside your standard popcorn, candy, and soda that are largely associated with multiplex movie-going. Burgers, soups, grilled cheese, fries, pizza — it was all on the menu. I remember the smoke of cigarettes swirling around in the light between the projector and the screen. I remember the padded reclining chairs that swiveled around tables so you could easily face the screen or your plate of food. At the time I thought to myself ‘This is it. The future is here. All movie theaters will be doing this soon.’

Not long after this memorable experience the cinema shut its doors forever after having convinced my nine year old self that I would have this type of movie-going experience to look forward to for the rest of my life. It would be over a decade before I had a similar movie-going experience again. This whole time I had never critically engaged with why or how a cinema might choose to serve food in one capacity or another. I know I liked eating at Tapas Teatro under the same roof as the Charles Theater in Baltimore. I know I became excited when

Landmark Cinemas started serving happy hour food and drink specials like so many other cafes and bars in the mid-Atlantic. Still, it took moving to another country and immersing myself in its cinema going culture before I began to consider the wide variety in exhibition practice as it relates to food. I then began to consider the circumstances through which food is associated with film, the history of food as it relates to cinema going, and the systems that govern how food is used in exhibition practice. I wondered how food, including the experience of gustation, might contribute to the text of film, if at all.

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Historically, the primary mode in which food has been studied in relation to film is that of traditional film history and film criticism. This mode involves interpreting the meaning of food representations in frame but this has limitations. Classic film theory valorizes the

materiality of film insofar as it focuses solely on interpreting the sound and images imprinted on material artifacts. When food becomes the object of film criticism it can only be approached through symbolic means. Aleksandra Drzał-Sierocka writes in her article _{Celluloid Flavours: A}

Brief History of Food in Film_{, ‘culinary issues in films often carry a metaphorical and symbolic}

potential, thus becoming a carrier of information regarding the cultural and social-political context in which the film was made’ (52). A specific example of this can be found in the work of Sylvie Durmelat. She focuses on food in the consideration of Maghrebi-French identity, writing ‘In the films by and about Maghrebi immigrants in France, couscous becomes an important signifier of ethnic identity, representing a changing relationship to the home and host countries and their ideals of taste’ (Durmelat 121). In this instance, Durmelat sees food as symbolically acting as a metaphor in relation to broader immigrant experiences.

Film criticism is often more self referential and contained to the constructed world of specific films. Film critic Rebecca Epstein specifically seeks to consider the symbology of food in what she considers non-food centric films. She approaches her review of Quentin Tarantino’s

Pulp Fiction_{as a means of tracking food in relation to notions of masculinity within the films’}

narrative arc. Of which she writes, ‘The absence of discourse about the food in Pulp Fiction confirms how much we take for granted the ways that food-centered activities structure, inform, and nourish our lives’ (205). While her focus is on food, she is lamenting the lack of focus on food in classic film criticism.

By focusing on the contents of audiovisual carriers alone, the social context in which film is experienced is ignored. The Brighton Conference of 1978 is often credited as instrumental in shifting the study of film from its textual reading to the study of the social context through which film is experienced. Wanda Strauven writes on the development of New Film History, ‘A new discipline emerged: cinema history, that is the history of cinema as institution, as exhibition practice, as social space’ (62). With the scope of traditional film studies widened to include the social context of film, food has still not been considered as much as one might think. I will now

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give a brief overview of the texts I have encountered that explicitly engage with cinema and food but offer little utility in this thesis. Doing so will help explicate the need for my research.

There are a limited set of academic studies that consider food as it relates to film and cinema culture outside of the textual reading of film. Laura U. Marks undergoes a

phenomenological exploration of how embodied memory can be incited through audiovisual materials in her book, _{Under the Skin of Film. A phenomenological approach to film offers} insight into the relationship between visuality and our other senses, but as dependent on personal and collective memory, falls outside of actual experience of gustation.

Stella Hockenhall traces the production of film propaganda in response to food shortages in the UK in her work _{Everybody’s Business: Film, Food, and Victory in the First World War.} The study of political responses to food shortages mediated through film production and film reception has a real world effect on food production and therefore the experience of gustation. However, this has very little to do with the experience of taste in relation to the text of film.

Food scholar Brian Wansink analyzes food packaging and container sizes in multiplex exhibition practice in his work _{At the Movies: How External Cues and Perceived Taste Impact}

Consumption Volume_{. These types of studies seek to scientifically explain consumption habits at}

the cinema as manipulated through exhibition practice.

Richard Farmer analyzes the implications of food rationing in UK cinema exhibition directly before, during, and after WWII in his work _{A Temporarily Vanished Civilisation: Ice}

Cream, Confectionery and Wartime Cinema-Going_{. His analysis elucidates the social meaning}

constructed in cinema going in relation to food and the sociological impact of food items available (or not) in the dominant mode of film reception of its time. Farmer is concerned with the social meaning constructed in the act of cinema-going and the role of food there within. While I argue the social context of food consumption inherently shapes the experience of spectator reception, I still wondered about how food and the experience of gustation relate to particular film texts.

The book _{Appetites and Anxieties: Food, Film, and the Politics of Representation,} interrogates the industrial relationship between the movie industry and food corporations. Cynthia Baron writes ‘Representations of food and food-related behavior circulate in an

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industrial system controlled by well-established institutions that determine what is and is not widely distributed’ (61). This study illustrates how certain film texts find their way to the cinema while others don’t and explains the food you will see in frame and in the concession area. The circumstances through which certain films and food find its audience is an underexplored object of study related to film texts and the food available at the multiplex. However, the industrial relationship between Hollywood and food corporations help to standardize food exhibition practice at the cinema where my interest lay at the reality of food-related exhibition practice and the possibility of food-related exhibition practice.

These studies all contribute to understanding the relationship between food, the text of film, film production, exhibition practice, and the wider social embeddedness of food and film industries. However, through the course of my research, I have become specifically interested in how gustation might directly shape the text of film reception. While food plays an integral role in and around film, gustation is excluded from textual considerations in relation to the audiovisual text of film. The wider commercial model of food in relation to cinema-going has become text under New Film History. However, New Film History is generally unconcerned with the textual experience of film reception. The fact that textual gustation has yet to be considered by film and media scholars denotes a largely hegemonic states of affairs in social and academic discourse. I contend the commercial model associated with food at the cinema serves as a barrier to the serious consideration of textual cinematic gustation.

How might food, as the carrier of taste, relate to the audiovisual text of film? Can

gustation be theorized as textual in relation film text despite the material inability of film to carry information that is neither audio nor visual?

This thesis aims to bring food from the symbolic textual reading that occurs with its representation in frame and from its contextual association as something that exists parallel to film reception. I will identify and explore the contributions of gustation in relation to the textual understanding of film reception and in the process, reimagine wider cinema culture. Gustatory sensation in relation to film text has been widely neglected by film and media scholars. The inclusion of the _{possibility of textual gustation as an object of media studies is a necessary step}

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forward in more clearly understanding the material and social intersections that make up cinema culture and history.

I will use the framework of media archaeology as a means to interrogate the origins of cinematic exhibition practice, the materiality and text of film, spaces of film reception, and modes of film reception. I will broadly draw on the perspective of Thomas Elsaesser and his application of media archaeology to film history. Media archaeology is generally associated with challenging the perceived linearity of the history of media. Chapter three of this thesis will further elaborate on these concepts and Elsaesser’s text _{Film History as Media Archaeology.} However, I will now justify the use of film theorist Tom Gunning, sound theorist Rick Altman, and archivist Giovanna Fossati in my exploration of gustation as film text.

Tom Gunning and Rick Altman are both associated with media archaeology in their desire to reconfigure the perceived linearity of film history. Tom Gunning investigates

pre-cinema exhibition practice and audience reception as a means of situating film and cinema practice in broader historical contexts. Altman investigates sound in the silent era of film in order to address the social and performative aspects of cinematic exhibition practice, which in turn necessitates a reevaluation the social embeddedness of film and the generation of film text. I draw on Giovanna Fossati and critical archive theory due to the role film archives play in

shaping social understanding of film and cinema culture. In explicating his views of Film History as Media Archaeology, Elsaesser writes ‘It touches on the arch (origin, first principle, authority), it asks about the status of the cinematic “archive” (the physical and virtual location of the

documents, films, and objects that make up cinema’s heritage)’ (19). In turn, Fossati adds ‘the theoretical discourse around film is essentially the same for film in general and for archival film in particular’ (200). Therefore, I recognize critical archive theory as existing under the

theoretical umbrella of media archaeology. I will now provide a brief outline of the following chapters of this thesis.

Chapter two of this thesis will explore notions of cinematic realism. These notions valorize filmic capabilities in terms of audiovisual representation but ignore film’s inherent inability to directly engage our other senses. As such, traditional film history and film criticism are content with reading and interpreting film text without considering all that is lost between

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representations in frame and reality. This chapter will elucidate the theoretical implications of cinematic realism in relation to the materiality of film through an exploration of André Bazin’s Myth of Total Cinema and Jean-Louis Baudry’s dispositif. For now, the dispositif can be understood simply as the ‘black box’ of film reception, also known as a ‘screening room.’ However, the use of ‘dispositif’ is useful in that it denotes the intentionality of its design in which Baudry finds importance in the facilitation of cinematic realism. I will then turn to Peter Kubelka’s Invisible Cinema and the FIAF code of ethics as a means of showcasing the

theoretical and institutional problems that prevent an approach to cinema that is inclusive of gustation.

Chapter three will expound upon the theoretical framework of media archaeology in relation to film history. I will synthesize the varying approaches of media archaeology as a means to elucidate the general perspective informing my exploration of cinematic textual gustation. In this process, I will provide brief, non-food related examples of media archaeological practice as a means of illustrating its broader theoretical utility.

Chapter four will probe food-related (pre-)cinematic exhibition practice in relation to the text of film. I will begin by investigating the role of food in relation to visual spectacle at

World’s Fairs with particular focus on the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904. I have chosen this specific site as a means of filling in the visual and gustatory gap of food found in Tom Gunning’s

The World as Object Lesson: Cinema Audiences, Visual Culture and the St. Louis World’s Fair, 1904_{. I argue that the visuality of “exotic” foods at World’s Fairs functioned as visual spectacle}

with the added dimension of inciting gustation. Similarly, I argue gustatory exhibitions featuring food from far-away locales had a ‘transportational’ quality contributing to the Fairs’ ‘collapse of space and time’ commonly only attributed to technological and visual elements of the Fair (_The

World as Object Lesson: Cinema Audiences, Visual Culture and the St. Louis World’s Fair, 1904).

I will then introduce the film archival framework of ‘film as dispositif’ which perceives the text of film as the mode in which it is received by its audience. While Baudry’s dispositif theorizes the importance of the ‘black box’ in facilitating cinematic realism, ‘film as dispositif’ is concerned with the materiality of audiovisual content, its associated projection technologies, and

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the spatial orientation of the spectator in relation to film reception. I argue that gustation in exhibition practice mirrors technology in the creation of new dispositifs, further embedding gustation as film text under the ‘film as dispositif’ framework.

Continuing with chapter four, I will focus on the work of sound theorist Rick Altman. I argue that the status of sound in relation to moving image has been considered contextual _and textual, sometimes depending on the materiality of film, and sometimes not. Therefore, I argue the text of film is not bound to its materiality and that gustatory exhibition practices mirrors that of sound-related exhibition practice in the silent era. I will then introduce Altman’s theory of ‘intersection’ that theorizes film screenings as ‘lines of activity […] of many groups and individuals’ that begin before and continue after the cinematic event (_{Sound Theory, Sound}

Practice_{7). I use this concept to argue cinematic textual gustation occurs with or without the}

consumption of audiovisual materials.

Chapter four will conclude by returning to the film archival framework ‘film as

performance.’ Of this framework, Fossati writes ‘By broadening the discussion beyond that of the film artifact, its projection, and the dispositif, the “film as performance” framework includes those elements that ensure a film exhibition’s unique performance’ (177). I therefore conceive of the cinema chef as a cinematic performer with audience gustation representing the experience of performance. I focus on the symbiosis of the ‘film as dispositif’ and ‘film as performance’ framework and further argue that cinematic performance does not have to be synchronized to projection by invoking the performance of film introduction and the performance of curators.

Chapter five will introduce three cases displaying three different models of food-related cinematic exhibition practice. My criteria for choosing these cases include diversity,

intentionality, and personal impact. However, in the case of Edible Cinema, I was forced to rely on their promotional material and secondary sources due to geographical constraints. I still believe I have consulted the sources necessary in order to construct a reliable interpretation of their practice and an intellectual understanding of audience experience. Concerning diversity of selection, my intention is to showcase the variety of approaches of food-related exhibition practice. Concerning intentionality, it was important to me that food be deliberately considered

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in exhibition practice. It is my belief that deliberate intention result in a more rich theoretical exploration and experience.

In order of appearance, I will look at the synchronized non-diegetic approach of Edible Cinema which I liken to non-diegetic sound in film. Second, I will explore the exhibition practice of Cinema of the Dam’d in their Saturday Morning Cartoons program. I relate the

experience of gustation as ‘transportational’ in the creation of a broader experience which I relate to the pre-cinema exhibition practice of World’s Fairs. Lastly, I will look at non-synchronized diegetic gustation in the exhibition practice of FC Hyena and their Food + Film Program. In this instance, a gustatory interpretation of the representational space of film is experienced by the audience before receiving the associated audiovisual text.

Chapter 2: The Duel Problem of Realism and Materiality

This chapter seeks to establish the theoretical and institutional barriers that prevent the consideration of textual gustation relating to film._{Section 2.1 will introduce André Bazin’s} Myth of Total Cinema, which theorizes the paradoxical role of realism as a driving force behind film reception. Section 2.1.1 will reflect on the phenomenology of film reception and the

mediating affect of food on the body in the dispositif. Section 2.2 will examine Jean-Louis Baudry’s concept of the dispositif, which frames the cinematic screening room as a technological apparatus. As such, I argue that focusing on the materiality of film and the technological aspect of film projection and reception denies the social embeddedness of cinema practice. Section 2.3 introduces Peter Kubelka’s Invisible Cinema, which I see as the application of Bazin and Baudry’s theories in practice. I assert that their perspective is rigid and incompatible with the social nature of cinema and transitional nature of film. In section 2.4 I examine the FIAF code of ethics as a means to highlight the institutional focus on the materiality of film and the impact this has on theorizing film beyond its material capacity.

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2.1 Realism and the Myth of Total Cinema

French film theorist André Bazin developed the concept of the Myth of Total Cinema which posits that the best application and goal of cinema is to reflect reality as closely as possible. He attributes the development of cinema to Plato's Myth of Icarus who built wings for human flight using feathers and wax, mimetic of real birds in the natural world. In Bazin’s eyes, both the dream of human flight and the evolution of film reflect the human desire to create in the image of the observable world (Joret 17). This myth is drawn upon in relation to cinema because Bazin sees film not as a derivative of technological achievement but rather as a _{concept early film} pioneers worked towards before these technologies existed. As an example, he points out early filmmaker Georges Méliès’ use of stencils in the application of color to film strips _{before the} development of the three color process that would go on to standardize the use of color in film as evidence of the constant desire to achieve elements of realism before technologies became widely available (Bazin 20). If the Myth of Total Cinema functions as a guiding principle in the development of cinema towards realism several problems arise.

The execution of total realism solely through the consumption of audiovisual materials falls short of its goals with its exclusion of olfaction, gustation, and somatosensation. The ability of cinema to phenomenologically induce non-audiovisual sensation has been well documented but a simulation of taste is different from the embodied experience that would necessitate realism. Phenomenological approaches to cinema are concerned with ‘examining how audiovisual media evoke these other senses within their own constraints’ (Marks 131). The phenomenology of film reception in the cinematic dispositif will be addressed further in section 2.1.1. However, for now, it is important to note that Marks’ statement acknowledges the gap between cinematic realism as we know it today and lived reality. Therefore, the problem of realism lies with the materiality of film and its inability to directly engage our other senses.

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Film technology has developed in a way that its materiality only allows for the capture and projection of audiovisual content. While this statement seems self evident it bears further consideration. It may not seem reasonable to expect a filmstrip or digital cinema package (DCP) to communicate taste as film is generally understood purely as an audiovisual medium. However, if Bazin’s concept of Total Cinema is the ultimate intention of film, its materiality is a failure by its inability to communicate to our other senses. This is not to disparage what film is capable of. However, the absurdity of considering projected gustation points to the fundamental material limitations of film. Still, it is important to remember the transitional nature of cinema. Whereas the standardization of the three color process and sound must have seemed unfathomable to cinema goers in 1906, the inclusion of taste in film might ever only be around the proverbial corner. Bazin asserts that ‘Every new development added to the cinema must, paradoxically, take it nearer to its origins. In short, cinema has not yet been invented!’ (21). Though it may be anticipatory, a gustatory turn is necessary in achieving cinematic realism which would then require a full reconsideration of the history and nature of film. In section 4.3 I will discuss the modern study of sound in the silent era of cinema, as explored by sound theorist Rick Altman, which will serve as a template in advocating for the importance of the inclusion of gustation in theorizing film and how the gustatory turn may already be in effect despite its exclusion from material film artifacts.

2.1.1 Phenomenological Film Reception

French philosopher Gilles Deleuze does not see the cinema in terms of realism or a movement towards it but rather as having a different objective altogether; to spread ‘experimental night or a white space over us: it works with dancing seeds and disturbance, and with a suspension, which in this way is the genesis of an unknown body’ (194). That is, our bodies become ‘blank slates’ through which audiovisual material has the power to induce a range of bodily reactions. The notion of the viewing body in the dispositif as a blank slate doesn’t necessarily negate Bazin’s Myth of Total Cinema but it does complicate how realism might be understood. The goal of

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cinema in this instance would differ from a realistic recreation of the world as an audience

member might know it but through the embodied experience of who and what is seen or heard on screen.

The blank slate cinema-goer of Deleuze occupies the metaphorical space between their own bodies and the content of projection. Vivian Sobchack writes of this particular state of movie watching in the classical dispositif as such; “On the rebound” from the screen — and without a reflective thought — I will reflexively turn toward my own carnal, sensual, and sensible being to touch myself touching, smell myself smell, taste myself tasting and in sum, sense my own sensuality’ (76). That is, the disembodied experience of the blank slate

paradoxically induces a cinema goer to confront their own material existence in an attempt to reconcile the partial occupation of another’s body on screen.

Sobchack’s observation alone does not explain the entirety of the relationship between eating and film watching. However, it does provide a circumstance through which food like popcorn or bite sized candies have become so synonymous with cinema going. Media studies scholar Amalie Hastie understands eating in the dispositif less a means of recognizing one’s own body but through the mechanization of bodies:

I wonder, then, if the chocolate itself might help mediate between the transient images on screen and the materiality of my body — not through a simple recognition of shared spaces or beliefs with what I see on the screen, but through the very rhythm of eating — allowing for both the mechanization and disruption of our bodily activities while viewing (293).

While there are many other social forces that influence the types of foods found at the cinema (advertising, sponsorship, ease of maintenance) it is this phenomenological state that provides the environment in which these other social forces manifest. Essentially, watching film in the classical cinematic dispositif will make audience members want to ground themselves in their material body (eating) and multiplex cinematic exhibition practice capitalizes on that. With time, this association has become so strong that food in the dispositif is now primarily seen solely in

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terms of exploitative financial models which functions as a barrier to the textual contributions of gustation to film.

The visual textuality of food in frame and its phenomenological impact in relation to the material existence of food in the dispositif establishes a text-context continuum in which

gustation resides in relation to film reception. Phenomenological gustation as mediated through film functions as a text of sorts, albeit a _{subtext — the focus is still on the ability of audiovisual} materials to possibly incite gustation through audiovisual means. When food _{out of frame} becomes textual in relation to cinema_{it is usually as something that runs parallel to film, as} something part of a broader social-entertainment-network. Phenomenologically induced realism and the phenomenological effect of cinema-going on the body cannot be ignored. However, I am concerned with how food and the experience of realized gustation contribute to the text of film. In section 4.3 I will further embed gustation as on the text-context continuum as facilitated through cinematic exhibition practice.

2.2 Facilitator of Realism: Baudry’s Dispositif

Plato’s Cave provides a visual account of the difference between belief and knowledge which mirrors the cinematic apparatus, or dispositif, as conceived by film theorist Jean-Louis Baudry. The fire in the cave is the projector in the cinema, the cave shadows are the film images, and the cinema audience the prisoner. The most glaring difference in this analogy is that Plato’s

prisoners do not know the shadows they see are only representations of reality, whereas the modern moviegoer is intellectually aware that projected film images are representational. Sill, for Baudry, the spatial configuration of the dispositif plays a crucial role in facilitating the

suspension of disbelief that necessitates an understanding of film in terms of realism.

According to Baudry, one of the functions of cinema as it relates to realism is to conceal the nature of its production, both in its capture (between the camera and ‘objective reality’) and screening processes (40). While he is concerned with ‘knowledge effect’ in the elucidation or mystification of these processes, as related to ‘getting lost’ in a film screening, I argue this focus

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on camera movement and projector placement is evidence of the philosophical scope of film studies as bound to the materiality of film and primarily concerned with the _{illusory abilities of} audio and visual materials. The filmmaking and projection techniques that have solidified their place as standard practice (montage, classical cinematic dispositif) have done so by reaffirming the premise that realism is achievable primarily through the material means of film. Still, Baudry’s concern over knowledge-effect embodies another complicating factor as it relates to food.

If the power of realism manifests in how film is intertwined with the concealment of the working techniques involved in its production and projection, it would follow that the same understanding would inform cinematic modes of reception. From this perspective, food or drink that has been prepared for cinematic ingestion would force its audience to acknowledge its production thus shattering the disembodied illusion of intended realism. That is, for Baudry, the notion of the cinematic dispositif by its very nature conceptually shuns and excludes the

cinematic experience of textual food and taste in a self fulfilling prophecy of audiovisual supremacy.

Before moving away from Baudry, it is important to acknowledge the concept of ‘ideological-effect.’ He is concerned with in the technical instrumentation of production and projection and its relation to perspective; ‘One may ask, do the instruments (the technical base) produce specific ideological effects, and are these effects themselves determined by the

dominant ideology’ ( 41). I am less concerned with the answer to this question than I am in the paradigm it sets forth, particularly as it relates to the socially embedded nature of cinema culture as opposed to the technologies that enable films existence. If the goal of cinema is to achieve realism and Bazin conceptualizes the classical cinematic dispositif as essential in propagating this cinematic illusion, there are assuredly ideological effects that are determined by the very existence of the dispositif. That is, the ideological-effect corresponds to the person behind the camera as well as the dispositif itself. Cinema theorized in terms of valorizing the material capabilities of film through the technology of the classic dispositif has no reason to look beyond itself despite the inability of film and the dispositif to directly engage gustation, olfaction, or somatosensation.

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2.3 Invisible Cinema as Manifesto

Invisible Cinema is the physical manifestation of the philosophical understanding of film

consumption as it relates to the role of the classical dispositif and the ability of film communicate realism despite the limitation of its materiality. Between 1970 and 1974, experimental filmmaker Peter Kubelka implemented his idea of the Invisible Cinema with the Anthology Film Archive in New York City. The cinema screened films as dark as legally allowed and was designed with steep stadium style seating with blinders on the side of each chair as a means of blocking out any additional stimuli in the consumption of film. Kubelka states in an interview with film and media studies professor Sky Sitney that the design of Invisible Cinema was ‘based upon the notion that like the other machines that a film depends on-cameras, developers, printers, editing machines, and projectors the room in which one sees a film should also be a machine designed for film viewing’ (103). The focus on the mechanization of the classical dispositif reinforces the supremacy of materiality despite its limitations in the theorization of film. This can further be seen in Kubelka stating in his text _{The Invisible Cinema that, ‘Film works for two senses. Eye} and ear. A cinema (when I say cinema I mean a projection room) has the sole function of bringing the filmed message from the author to the beholder with a minimum of loss’ (32). For the harbingers of Invisible Cinema, the meaning of film is found purely in the visual

consumption of the material artifact — any other experienced stimuli is an obstacle that threatens to ‘take [one] out of the cinematic reality which [they] have come to participate’ in (Sitney 111). However, there is a teleological distinction that should be made between the design of a cinema designed to minimize distraction versus one that emphasizes the materiality of film. Without considering how our other senses might be used or contribute to the meaning of film, something like food will only be seen as a distraction as opposed to its potential contributions to the

experience and meaning of (total) cinema.

Kubelka specifically mentions food and its exclusion from Invisible Cinema saying that ‘The difference is in the motive. People who build a commercial theater want to make money, so

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they concentrate on vending machines, and we wanted to build a cinema’ (Kubelka 35). This perspective embodies the metaphorical hurdle that prevents the serious consideration of food and taste as it relates to the meaning of cinema. The commercial model associated with the sale of foods in movie theaters exists in stark contrast to the high art of cinema according to Kubelka. However, that a commercial model dominates how gustation in experienced in relation to film consumption does not necessitate a lack of textual value in the meaning of film. In fact, it is an indication of how filmmakers, curators, archivists, film theorists, and many exhibition spaces don’t begin to even consider the value and potential of that relationship outside of the dominant commercial model. The overarching heralding of the effect of the classical dispositif and Invisible Cinema valorizes the materiality of film. While there is nothing inherently wrong with championing what the materiality of film can achieve, it cannot come at the expense of ignoring the consideration of its shortcomings if the goal of cinema is realism. Yet there is still the problem of acknowledging the social function of cinema.

The founders of Invisible Cinema understood their project as a statement on the artistry of film and how it ought to be consumed. Ken Kelman who sat on the film selection committee for Anthology Films during the period of Invisible Cinema says ‘My own feeling is that the Invisible Cinema was primarily a manifesto and once the statement had been made, and it had been put down in the history books, it didn't have to be made again’ (Sitney 112). Invisible Cinema as a manifesto ignores the flexibility in how film is used and understood socially.

Invisible Cinema as a manifesto makes the evaluative judgement that any turn away from the classic black box somehow dilutes the meaning of cinema.There are a variety of screening practices that together make up the wider cinema going landscape which can be found for

instance in the screening of the same film in 2D, 3D, IMAX, or 4DX— or screenings on boats, in fields, or as part of festivals, or screenings in conjunction with food and beverage. The idea that film is one particular thing that should be experienced one particular way is rigid, Aristotelian, and incompatible with the transitional nature of cinema. Concerning Invisible Cinema’s approach to screening practices, Kubelka asserts that they were ‘not concerned with the audience’ and only ‘interested in film’ (Sitney 110). Valorizing the materiality of film and the cinematic apparatus’ ability in inducing realism denies the social embeddedness in the meaning

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constructed in and around cinema. It might be telling that Invisible Cinema was not sustainable for longer than four years.

2.4 FIAF, (Con)text, and Materiality

FIAF, founded by film archives in France, Germany, Great Britain, and the United States in 1938 is the governing body that sets guidelines for cultural heritage audiovisual archives. Today, there are 164 non-profit institutions affiliated with FIAF spanning 75 countries (FIAF). Broadly speaking, their mission revolves around the preservation of and access to film heritage. On the surface, the concept of film heritage does not seem particularly difficult to grasp but upon closer inspection a wide avenue of interpretation emerges. The material nature of what is meant by ‘film’ is malleable as digital technology has become more ubiquitous than its analog

predecessors. The conceptual nature of what is meant by ‘film’ includes its modes of

consumption, which further complicates its essence as it relates to, and is embedded in social practice. I acknowledge the use of ‘heritage’ in this instance is similarly ambiguous as it relates to the materiality of film and the customs surrounding its consumption. Caroline Frick points out in her book _{Saving Cinema, the concept of ‘heritage’ has been used politically to justify the} existence of audiovisual archives and their selections processes (4). However, despite its importance, an inspection of the political and evaluative aspect of ‘heritage’ falls outside the scope of this thesis.

My interest lies at where the boundary of the conceptual artifact of film resides in relation to the social embeddedness of cinema culture. That is, there are multiple levels of categorization that occur within the archive, simultaneously at the level of conceptualizing the definition of what constitutes film heritage and the level of evaluating objects themselves. I am primarily concerned with the former in an attempt to broaden the scope of film text so that gustation may be considered in regard to the latter. This next paragraph will focus on the apparent

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Code of Ethics. I argue this prioritization influences the discourse on how cinema is conceptualized and therefore widely defined in social and scholarly discourse.

Film archives and film archivists are the guardians of the world’s moving image heritage. It is their responsibility to protect that heritage and to pass it on to posterity in the best possible condition and as the truest possible representation of the work of its creators (FIAF, _{FIAF Code of Ethics 5).}

As discussed in the previous paragraph, the use of the word ‘heritage’ in relation to cinema is ambiguous. One must ask themselves of the use of ‘heritage’ — ‘what is it exactly that archival guardians are protecting?' Is it the material artifact acting as carrier of content all that is meant? Does ‘pass it on; mean only physically then and without metaphor? If film is understood as a collaborative form at its core then who exactly are ‘its creators’? This is not purely an exercise in cinematic mental gymnastics but the posing of important questions regarding the nature of what film is, what it does, and how it functions both materially and conceptually — historically and in the present. The archival focus on the material aspects of cinema is understandable as tangible objects are more easily reckoned with than conceptual ones. Still, the tension between

preservation and presentation within the role of audiovisual archives persists. Much of the social embeddedness of cinema culture manifests in the practice of presentation. Therefore it is fair to ponder the point of the preservation of audiovisual materials without its presentation. There has been plenty of theorizing on how best to make archival film materials more widely available while simultaneously providing the proper context for viewing but this is usually done from the perspective of intellectually situating the content in its wider historic or academic discourse. However, there is one short passage that alludes to the preservation of the ‘experience’ of film reception but even this seems to refer more to the materiality of film artifacts and its associated technological apparatus.

1.6 When providing access to materials by programming, projection, or other means, archives will seek to achieve the closest possible approximation to the original viewing

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experience, paying particular attention (for example) to the appropriate speed and the correct aspect ratio (FIAF, _{FIAF Code of Ethics 6).}

There are two words in this passage that require more in-depth considerations — ‘original’ and ‘experience.’ The concept of the ‘original’ has multiple meanings depending on the framework it is applied to. As Giovanna Fossati points out in her book _{From Grain to Pixel, ‘The original can} be a conceptual artifact (e.g. one particular version of a film) or a material artifact (e.g. the original camera negative), it can refer to the film as it was originally shown to the audience, as well as the material film artifact as it was recovered by the film archive’ (161). Thus far, I have made the distinction between between ‘material’ and ‘conceptual’ as it relates to film in terms of the physical artifact and the _{ideas that coincide with and socially frame said artifact. Here,} Fossati refers to conceptual and material originals in terms of the content held within physical carriers. That is, more often than not, how film is conceptualized is still often directly tied to its materiality. However, the word ‘experience’ in article 1.6 of the FIAF Code of Ethics provides a possible entry point in the discussion of the contextual, social, and other ephemeral phenomena that simultaneously surround film and make up the network in which cinema manifests.

As noted above, FIAF affiliated institutions that are engaged in exhibition practice have a duty to ‘achieve the closest possible approximation of the original viewing experience’ (FIAF,

FIAF Code of Ethics_{6). Again, upon close inspection, these guidelines provide as many (if not}

more) questions as they do answers. The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘experience’ as ‘an event or occurrence which leaves an impression on someone’ (lexico.com). The valorization of the materiality of film implies that the experience of cinema, and what is impressed upon its audiences, is primarily concerned with physical film materials and their playback apparatuses. Again, how cinema is categorized and defined shapes what is considered essential in the

experience of exhibition. The notion of materialistic superiority is mirrored in the FIAF concern of appropriate playback speed and aspect ratio in regard to providing ‘original viewing

experiences’ (_{FIAF Code of Ethics 6). While these are obviously important elements in the} exhibition and reception of film, especially in terms of historically accurate re-presentations, I contend that film is textually embedded in the social practices surrounding it. The FIAF focus on

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material artifacts constricts how film is more broadly conceptualized. While this focus on material film artifacts makes practical sense, the authority of audiovisual archives and its role in shaping the meaning and value of cinema necessitates an approach to film that is not necessarily tethered by its materiality. It is only in this way that cinema, in all of its iterations, makes itself available as an object of study.

Chapter 3: The Utility of Media Archaeology

This chapter seeks to establish the varying approaches of media archaeology. Section 3.1 will address prototypical categorization and assert that the media archaeological perspective is prototypical in nature. I specifically draw on film archives and their practice due to their public role in socially shaping the definition of film and cinema. In section 3.2 I will give a broad overview of media archaeology in order to situate film in broader media ecologies. Instead of an in depth analysis of each text that is mentioned I will discuss the major motifs that emerge from its diverging practices as pointed out by media culture researcher Simone Natale. Section 3.3 will specifically focus on Thomas Elsaesser’s _{Film History as Media Archaeology. A media}

archaeological approach to film history will provide the necessary framework in order to understand film outside of its visually symbolic-textual reading related to the physicality of its carrier. This framework will inform my approach to bringing gustation into the text of film in chapter four.

I would like to note that I will not directly examine the work of Michel Foucault but it is worth mentioning that media archaeology is directly influenced by the French philosopher. In short, sound theorist Rick Altman succinctly describes the Foucauldian perspective as one interested in ‘replacing [linear, L.E.] history by an archaeology in which the individual strands making up any single event are teased out and separately followed up’ (_{Sound Theory, Sound}

Practice_{7). This perspective is the metaphorical umbrella under which diverging media}

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3.1 Prototypical Cinema

Information systems theorists Geoffrey Bowker and Susan Star examine the problems of

reconciling prototypical categorization in relation to Aristotelian definitions in their book _Sorting

Things Out, Classifications and its Consequences_{and the problems that arise in their}

incompatibility. The development of prototypical categorization created a less rigid system of classification that reflected shades of being as opposed to rigid binary concepts of classification under Aristotelian systems (201). A prototypical understanding of cinema and how cinema manifests materially and socially allows for its existence in terms of degree as opposed to the binary alternative of ‘being cinematic’ or not. A continuum is implied in this framework where the different elements that make up cinema culture can be interrogated as such. This is an important concept for media and film theorists because it changes the objective of their practice. Questions they must ask themselves regarding media objects in their wider field of study evolve from ‘Is this Cinema?’ into ‘How cinematic is this?’ or ‘In what ways is this phenomena

cinematic?’ The next paragraph will extrapolate this line of reasoning further into audiovisual archival practice.

Theorist Eric Ketelaar invented the term ‘archivalization’ to denote ‘the conscious or unconscious choice (determined by social and cultural factors) to consider something worth archiving. Archivalization precedes archiving’ (133). The parameters that mark audiovisual archives definition of cinema impacts the scope of their practice. The relationship between these institutions and the material and conceptual artifacts they deal with becomes cyclical. Before an object can be ‘archivalized,’ it first needs to be _{considered as part of the network that makes up} cinema as we know it. If an object, ephemeral or otherwise, is understood as being outside of this network that makes up wider text of cinema, it cannot begin to be considered as such. That is, a prototypical approach to the study of film is necessary if cinema is to be understood as a

materially and socially complex phenomena. I understand the approach of media archaeology as prototypical in nature, providing the necessary theoretical tools that allow for the consideration of film texts as embedded in social practice.

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3.2 The Recurring Motifs of Media Archaeology

There are a wide variety of approaches that fall under the umbrella of media archaeology rendering its total comprehension a sprawling and difficult endeavor. Media culture researcher Simone Natale attempts to coherently synthesize this variation in his essay, _{Understanding}

Media Archaeology_{through broadly analyzing three seminal books that have proven influential}

in media studies in order to find overlaps and commonalities between approaches. Those books are _{Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications, and Implications' edited by Erkki Huhtamo} and Jussi Parikka, _{Book of Imaginary Media: Excavating the Dream of the Ultimate}

Communication Medium_{edited by Eric Kluitenberg, and Deep Time of the Media: Toward an} Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means_{edited by Siegfried Zielinski.}

Natale asserts there are three core characteristics that lie at the center of the media archaeological approach found in these texts. First, he writes, is ‘the refusal of the notion of linear progress […] from less to more sophisticated technologies’ (Natale 526). A clear example of this phenomena can be found in the marketplace triumph of the VHS format over Betamax. Indiana University Professors of Information Systems Alan R. Dennis and Bryan A. Reinicke point out that ‘Beta failed because Sony (Beta’s creator) thought that users were more concerned with image quality than they were with the number of hours that could be recorded on a single tape’ (2). Even though Beta ultimately achieved the same temporal recording capabilities as VHS (while maintaining its superior image quality), established social preferences dictated that the inferior product (VHS) ‘win’ this particular battle of standardization. In this way, the relationship between technological artifacts and their social embeddedness are intrinsically intertwined.

The second core characteristic of media archaeology is ‘the emphasis given to recovering meaning of episodes and facts in the history of media that are usually disregarded’ (Natale 526). An example of this can be seen in the work of Erkki Huhtamo as he asserts in his essay, _Moving

Panorama: A Missing Medium, _{that the field of media studies has paid scant attention to moving}

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the future of its time [which, L.E.] can provide valuable windows for observing media in operation’ (11). Through the prism of media archaeology, an obsolete and almost forgotten medium such as the moving panorama can produce new knowledge in relation to the meaning of cinema. Producing the illusion of motion and framing it socially as ‘humans who concoct media spectacles with other humans in mind […] collective and individual, conscious and unconscious — molds the media’ (Huhtamo 17). Interpreting the relationship of seemingly disparate media provides an opportunity for the construction of a more detailed and nuanced understanding of the histories of media. In turn, this new understanding provides the tools to more clearly make sense of our current media environment.

The final characteristic Natale identifies is ‘substantial methodological anarchy [which] is expressed through an explicit and deliberate call for a history that does not fear to wander in an inspired exploration of the richness of media culture’ (526). Drawing on a wide range of disciplines allows for a flexibility that would otherwise prevent capturing the complexity and wider context in which media functions historically, politically, educationally, scientifically, socially. I consider this flexibility an asset in its ability to approach media studies from a multitude of vantage points.

3.3 Film History as Media Archaeology

Thomas Elsaesser discusses four approaches that inform his Film History as Media Archaeology as identified by Wanda Strauven. While these approaches overlap with each other and with the recurring motifs Natale identifies, a quick review will inform Elssaeser’s approach of Film History as Media Archaeology more explicitly. Simply put, these approaches include seeking the ‘old in the new’, the ‘new in the old’, identifying ‘recurring topoi’, and an emphasis on historical ruptures and discontinuities in the history of film (Elsaesser 44). The approach of ‘old in the new’ is based on the idea that ‘new’ media forms embody traces of other media either physically or conceptually. The approach of finding ‘new in the old’ is related to the rejection of the

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metaphor of history in terms of geological rock formations. To identify ‘recurring topoi’ is to understand instances in the history of media as related through different phenomena serving the same purpose. For instance, this can be seen in the desire of immersive experience as achieved through panoramic paintings of the 18th century and the digital immersive experiences of virtual reality systems. Lastly, the emphasis on ruptures and discontinuities broadens the scope of media history by seriously considering obsolete mediums and their historical potentials and

possibilities. Elsaesser summarizes his take on media archaeology as follows:

As to the “astonishing otherness of the past”, media archaeology, revealing and naming the particular mindsets or thought processes that produced a certain device or dispositif can show how materially and conceptually different the past is from the present, even in its apparent similarity, which in turn leads one to speculate what might have been and could still be, along with what has been, has been forgotten, or is poised to return (46).

Conducting film history with the use of media archaeology challenges conventional notions concerning the development of cinema in time. In conceptualizing cinema as an archaeological site to be excavated, different strands of film history that reside outside of the textual reading of material artifacts emerge. Elsaesser notes that ‘Cinemas past as well as its future [is] firmly embedded in other media practices, other technologies, other social uses, and above all as having — throughout history — interacted with, been dependent on, been complimented by, and found itself in competition with all manner of entertainment forms’ (19). The uniqueness of cinema is not a justification for an archaeological approach, rather it is how cinema is positioned in broader media discourse that requires this framework. Dr. Thomas Sutherland writes in his review of

Media Archaeology as Film History_{that while the standardization of digital cinema may}

paradoxically multiply cinematic dispositifs, the media archaeological approach to cinema ‘supplies for the cinematic dispositif a new historical grounding, not genealogy that would make claim to privileged originarity and linearity’ (555). That is, media archaeology as film history understands the process of convergence and divergence as ‘a determined plurality and a

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permanently open virtuality, where not only the future, but the past, too, has to be invented’ (Elsaesser, 93).

Inventing and reinventing the scope and meaning of the cinematic dispositif of the past, present, and future carries with it the danger of merely rearranging the sedimented layers of film history and assigning them fluctuating degrees of importance. In order to avoid this problem, Elsaesser conceptualizes the practice with ‘a more restricted focus that puts cinema tactically at the center [of Film History as Media Archaeology, L.E.] while extending the scope of the medium in new directions’ (21). He goes to state his interest in the conceptual ‘where’ and ‘when’ of cinema. He asks, ‘[is] cinema a state of mind or mankind’s dream for centuries,’ (Elsaesser 21) an allusion to the Myth of Icarus and the Myth of Total Cinema. I understand cinema as both mankind’s dream _{and a state of mind. It is in this spirit that I conduct my analysis} of textual cinematic gustation through which the ‘when’ and ‘where’ of cinema will reveal themselves in unexpected places.

Chapter 4: Food, Exhibition Practice, and the Gustatory Text of Film

The ‘when’ and ‘where’ of cinema as it relates to food and gustation is of particular interest in this thesis. A media archaeological approach to film history as proposed by Elsaesser allows for the consideration of the ongoing social embeddedness of gustation in relation to the textual meaning of film outside of the dominant understanding of film in relation to its materiality. In section 4.1 I will first turn my attention to Tom Gunning’s essay _{The World as Object Lesson:}

Cinema Audiences, Visual Culture and the St. Louis World’s Fair, 1904_{as a means to consider}

the role of food and gustation in early and pre-cinema exhibition sites.

Section 4.1.1 will continue to address the archaeology of food in early era exhibition practice. I do this as a means to showcase the diversity of food in relation to early cinematic exhibition practice and to demonstrate that the multiplex concession model has never been a modern inevitability. I also make the side argument that the diversity of early exhibition practice in relation to food, even as _{context, fundamentally shapes understandings of film history.}

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Section 4.2 will then draw upon the ‘film as dispositif’ framework as explicated by Giovanna Foassati in her book _{From Grain to Pixel. This framework theorizes the text of film in} terms of where and how film is received by its audience. I argue the proliferation of digital technologies and the theorization of new dispositifs is related to the exhibition practice of creating (the appearance of) novelty. In this way, gustation in exhibition practice mirrors

technology in the creation of new dispositifs, further embedding gustation as film text under the ‘film as dispositif’ framework.

Section 4.3 will focus on sound theorist Rick Altman’s understanding of the history of sound in relation to film. This will provide a template for as to why gustation has been ignored in relation to textual film history as well as a justification for its inclusion. The application of his understanding of sound in relation to the history of film will help me further demonstrate the relationship between gustation and film.

Section 4.3.1 will address another concept from Altman, that of ‘intersection’ and ‘lines of activity’ as it pertains to cinema events. In the consideration of particular screening events, I understand his approach as a kind of micro-archaeology within the macro-archaeology of Film History as Media Archaeology. He suggests that historically, film critics have neutralized cinemas complexity by having ‘systematically concentrated on the uniformity of the image’ (_{Sound Theory, Sound Practice 4). Here, I will focus on what exists outside of the ‘stress[ed,} L.E.] single moment of apparent unity’ (_{Sound Theory, Sound Practice 4) as facilitated through} cinematic exhibition practice and audience reception .

Section 4.4 will then come back to Fossati in the form of explicating the film archival framework of ‘film as performance’ which will further embed the visual and gustatory role of food in relation to cinematic exhibition practice and the text of film. By the end of this chapter I hope to have showcased how technology shapes social practice of cinema, how social practice shapes the conceptual artifact of film, and the role of gustation there within.

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4.1 Food as Tastable Image-Object (and more)

Tom Gunning coined the term Cinema of Attractions as a means to address non-narrative filmmaking in the early period of cinema. The term is often associated with spectacle and distinguishes itself from narrative film conceptually in its aim to _{show its audiences some} phenomena as opposed to putting the primary spectator in the role of voyeur. Though narrative film has become more ubiquitous than non-narrative film, Gunning posits that this

spectacle-component has not disappeared but rather ‘goes underground, both into certain avant-garde practices and as a component of narrative films’ (_{Cinema of Attractions 382). For} instance, traces of the phenomena manifest in modern blockbusters that may be lacking in narrative substance but existent as a vehicle for showcasing cutting edge CGI explosions and other visual spectacles. This is important in understanding cinema through media archaeology as it connects pre-cinema and early cinema exhibition practice with current filme practice, albeit in different ways, with the use of ‘cutting edge’ technology.

It is through understanding the use of cutting edge technology _{in its own time that one can} trace cinematic spectator experience to a time before the standardization of the cinematic

dispositif. Gunning writes about the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair saying the ‘Exposition

celebrated the triumphs of technology in the annihilation of space and time, the image it offered of the world contained within its bounded grounds sought to provide a miniature compendium of all the world had to offer’ (_{The World as Object Lesson 426). The actualities of early cinema} functioned in a similar way to these expositions — without narrative and as a visual means to experience an otherness not immediately available. This desire to experience the shrinking of space time by any means, whether it be by train, film, or exposition, mirrors Bazin’s Myth of Total Cinema.

If the Myth of Total Cinema is built upon the human desire to re-create in the form of the natural world as discussed in section then perhaps these exposition sites and early cinema (and

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quite literally the expansion of travel by train at the time) function as a means to facilitate the human desire simply to explore. Surely, there is a visual component to the exploration of new spaces however the supremacy of visuals in this instance is purely happenstance. Different locations provide different sounds, smells, textures, and _{tastes. It is not that audiences wanted to} experience new locales once moving-image made the illusion a possibility with the distortion of time and space — rather the development of film facilitated the illusory experience without the work of actually traveling.

In the entirety of Tom Gunning’s essay _{World as Object Lesson, food is mentioned} exactly once — ‘thronged with visual entertainments such as dioramas, displays of “Wild Men of Borneo” and freak shows, as well as food stands’ (430). In this passage, Gunning is referring to the Midway, an unofficial pop up exhibition site built outside of the official World’s Fair where he states that this area’s connections to early cinema are most robust (430). Aside from the novel appeal of electricity and other carnivalesque attractions, national pavilions and structures in the Midway made use of architecture to visually communicate the illusion of different locales. Performers would act out national and regional customs in an illusory approximation of their respective cultures. And upon further inspection it seems as though food and taste played a central role in their ability to visually and gustatorily transform space and time —aside from the possibility of food functioning as an attraction in its own rite.

Food objects visually function in the same way approximations of regional architecture and the performance of culture do. These seemingly disparate threads of architecture, human performance, and food-taste are inseparable in how they work together to transform space and time. Authors Wouter Van Acker and Christophe Verbuggen write ‘This interconnected constellation turned world’s fairs into isomorphic phenomena, characterized by an increasing codification of a standard repertoire and the gradual development of special exhibition language’ (12). This directly connects to Gunning’s interest in World’s Fair Expositions as sites of

pre-cinema exhibition practice and of visual spectator reception. Of the official exposition site, Van Acker and Verbruggen go on to point out that ‘Similar to the national pavilions, regional styled cafes served newly invented regional dishes’ (16). That is, every national pavilion that ‘transports’ its audience through visual means likely did so gustatorily as well. For example, in

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regard to the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, food writer Robert Moss writes ‘In addition to typical fair fare, visitors could dine at the Chinese Village, the Streets of Cairo, the Irish Village and the grand Tyrolean Restaurant, which sat 3,000 customers amid miniature replicate of the Alps’ (2016). Regional cuisine was as ubiquitous at these sites as any other visual means in the distortion of time-space, all without these foods ever having to necessarily be tasted. This is not meant to minimize the contribution of gustation to pre and early cinema exhibition practice but rather to point out that food, as _{a carrier of taste, has a visual component no different from any} other visual stimulation at World’s Fairs. That is, the actuality of food is considered so little in relation to the cinematic dispositif that the scholarly investigation of pre and early cinema exhibition practice renders what food _{can represent visually — invisible.}

Food was hardly invisible at the world fair as it related not only to what it could

communicate visually or gustatorily but also in its relationship to technology and performance as well. The Palace of Agriculture was one of eleven temporary large structures erected for the official St. Louis World’s Fair. Other themed palaces included that of fine arts, machinery, and electricity — subjects more readily accepted as contributing to the textual understanding of the cinematic dispositif. However, of all of the palaces, the Palace of Agriculture was the largest (Moss 2016). Newly rolled out refrigerated railroad cars allowed for food to be brought from further away locales than previously possible. This brought fruit from south Florida and the Caribbean — visually and gustatorily communicating exotic locales over 1000 miles away.

Evidence of the transportational novelty of food is seen in the fact that grapefruit would sell at the World’s Fair for around one hundred dollars a box when adjusted for inflation today (Moss 2016). An exhibition site where chemical analysis of different brands of ketchup revealed which brands to be most pure showcases just one way food and technology are related (Moss 2016). The Quaker Oats exhibition featured their newest technological development in relationship to food where ‘Every 50 minutes, a load of rice was put into giant cannons and heated until it exploded from the barrels, puffed to eight times its original size’ (Moss 2016). Food and taste intersected with technology, performance, and visual spectacle at the 1904 World’s Fair and was arguably situated at the center of it all. That film can be understood as a site of convergence between technology, performance, and visual spectacle is not a coincidence. Rather at one point

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in time, film and food functioned in a way that mirrored one another, serving similar social functions coinciding with the emergence of the modern era. The difference between the two as a medium being that food directly appeals to all of our senses in a way that film cannot.

If modern cinema practice and consumption can be traced through this era of World’s Fairs, the problem of film materiality then emerges as cinema culture began to socially replace non-film centric spectacles. I contend that Gunning only briefly mentions food because food and taste in relation to cinema today is predominantly understood as tangential in its relationship to the dispositif. As demonstrated in the previous paragraph, the visuality of food had the same visual capability of transforming environments by their presence alone, if not more so than through other spectacles, objects, and technologies due to its ability to communicate taste. Had film materially developed from this point in a way that could directly capture taste and

communicate gustation, taste would be considered textual, similar to audio and visual information stored on film — thus transforming the understandings of gustation and its contributions to cinema and film throughout history.

4.1.1 Archaeology of Food in Cinematic Exhibition Practice

In section 4.1 I discussed the function of food as an image-object in relation to Tom Gunning’s assessment of World’s Fairs as a basis for cinematic exhibition practice and film reception. I made the argument that the visuality of food and its taste functioned similarly to other spectacles found at World’s Fairs in its transportational capacity. The focus of this section is not on how textual gustation has been overlooked in the archaeology of film but rather food’s historic function in actual cinema exhibition practice. The conventional view of food as a purely financial endeavor in relation to pre-cinematic exhibition practice does not directly translate to food’s function in early cinematic exhibition practice. My intention is not to entirely map out the different uses of food through the history of exhibition practice as that is beyond the scope of this thesis. My intention is to briefly showcase the diversity of exhibition practice as it relates to food over time and space in the early period of cinema. I do this in acknowledging the perspective of media archaeology that ‘progress’ is not linear, that there are a variety of social factors that shape