• Login
  • Register

Work for a Member organization and need a Member Portal account? Register here with your official email address.

Project

DisCourse Dinners

Artemisia Luk

What does it take to get a group of strangers to open up?

DisCourse is a curated dinner series that transforms a meal between strangers into an experiment in how we gather, listen, and be in conversation with one another.  ​

Hosted in "The GUT" – an underground archive of the future – and led by a whimsical facilitator, the experience immerses guests in an alternate universe filled with rituals and rules, where technologies actually support meaningful connection, not just divide and distract.

Taking inspiration from immersive theatre, DisCourse is an unconventional invitation to the MIT community to reexamine their relationship to socializing, and set the stage for a collective future grounded in listening, sharing, and mutual understanding.

Setting the Stage

For those who know, somewhere deep inside the guts of MIT lies an underground oasis for real human connection, and it’s now open for dinner. Introducing The GUT community archive: now serving dinner & intrigue, hot takes & lore, and anything but p-sets. 

Hidden in a secret underground room on campus, the archive is an unconventional space to gather, eat, and and share unfiltered stories. Part game, part ritual, part dinner, this immersive experience opens its doors once a week to a select group from the MIT community. 

To access the underground space, you’ll need to arrive ON TIME at the unmarked service door located at <address hidden>. Knock three times and wait for the host to bring you inside. The experience will last 2 full hours, includes dinner, and runs from 6:30-8:30.

Something special about this place that we've all come to is just being able to be trusting with people that you've never met 
The power of like the right set of a new set of rules... We made a new game here but that little different world we created here, it's like a really powerful thing

The GUT launches for a successful first season. 

In April-June 2025, the GUT was open by invitation only for students in the MIT community. 8 dinners were hosted, each with 5-8 guests. The archive collected 51 new objects as a result of the dinners.

I think normally in conversation there's some presumption of non vulnerability. You almost don't wanna be too deep in a conversation to make it like kind of weird. But it was nice being intentionally vulnerable.

Situating technology within a fundamental human social ritual

Guests exchange stories between dinners through multi-media objects presented as part of the archive. Each object, gathered from guests as payment for dinner, is imbued with an audio story from the patron who donated it. The dinner begins with guests selecting an object in the archive to use as the centerpoint for their conversation. At the end, they are invited to reflect on the experience and record their own audio story. 

By sharing human stories through knick-knacks and dinner parties, this work suggests a subtle role for technology to play in human relationships: the technological artifacts are used as prompts for conversation, and as a tangible way to feel the presence of others. Unlike social media which treats technological artifacts as a primary means for social experiences, DisCourse incorporates technology into existing human relationship scaffolding, highlighting what is lost when the bulk of human conversation happens digitally. 

Designing with discomfort

What does it take to overcome the discomfort of talking to strangers? This project rejects the idea that social awkwardness is a problem for technology to solve. At each step of the experience guests are encouraged to push through discomforts – ambiguous prompts, unclear menus,  introducing yourself to strangers – all become clearly part of the specialness of the experience. Short courses ensure that no one stays in their discomfort for too long, and that risks are celebrated loudly.

The GUT is currently under construction and seeking a new home. For more information about this unusual project and where it's heading, email Cassandra Lee at cass_lee@mit.edu.