Exploring tasty fluidics for designing food as computational artifact

Abstract

Contemporary human-food interaction design is predominantly a technology-driven endeavor in which food has not been synergistically employed as a major design material. This article extends a recent approach to food-computation integration that uses food as the primary material to realize computation. We present a “Research through Design” exploration of an edible computational material resulting in a novel design scheme, “tasty fluidics”, which enables food items to regulate their flavor and visual presentation computationally. Through reflection on our practice, we derive a set of insights as to the qualities of tasty fluidics and its utility in the exploration of food as a computational artifact. Moreover, through the development of an extended analogy of food-computational integration, we provide a first-hand account of an interrogation of what it means to design food as computational artifact and offer new ways to empower food creators to innovate future human-food interactions in contemporary gastronomic narratives.