FlavorPalette

This project draws inspiration from participatory art, inviting participants to engage in a creative exploration through an interactive installation. The core idea is to allow users to actively contribute to and experience the art in adynamic way. It consists of two main components: an interface managed via p5.js and the physical mechanism powered by Arduino.

Participants begin their interaction by creating a collage from various provided puzzlepieces. Once satisfied with their creation, participants press the ENTER key on the keyboard to trigger the calculation in order to get a specific candy flavor- either strawberry, apple, or cola. If participants decide to taste the candy, they press the big button, activating the "vending machine". This machine, constructed with Arduino parts, dispenses a candy that matches the flavor determined by the hue of user collage.

UserFlow Diagram:

People often experience a form of visual synesthesia with flavors upon seeing certain colors (Banissy, Jonas, & Cohen Kadosh, 2014), a passive perception shaped by marketing strategies. This project reverses that process, empowering users totake the lead by choosing colors themselves, thus exploring whether there is a correlation between color preferences and their taste preferences.

I was firstly inspired by Rirkrit Tiravanija's 'Untitled (Free)' (1922) when designing this interactive installation. Tiravanija transformed Gallery 303 in New York into a kitchen, serving visitors free curry and rice, thus redefining the interaction between the audience and the artwork. Drawing on this transformative approach, my installation aims to further enhance personal experiences through artistic participation. This is precisely why participants are invitedto create collages. Simultaneously inspired by Tiravanija, my project also embraces the idea that food can serve as a medium for art (Deng et al., 2023).

The design of the collage primarily revolves around the user's application ofcolor. As a form of personal expression, collage allows individuals to experiment and express their emotional states through the choice and arrangement of visual elements (Smith, vanDellen, & Ton, 2021), and therefore show their preference for color. The design of puzzle referenced artworks of Ellsworth Kelly, using simple geometry and color. When designing the puzzle, I incorporated the four colors of the Google logo—red, blue, green,and yellow. Google selected these colors to symbolize the company's commitment to diversity and inclusion (Bigelow, 2014). Similarly, I chose these hues to enrich the user experience, creating an open and welcoming atmosphere in the art-making process, thereby inspiring participants to explore and express their individuality and uniqueness.

Also drawing inspiration from Felix Gonzalez-Torres's "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A., 1991), I've chosen candy, a snack loved by nearly everyone with a variety of flavors, as a medium for my interactive installation, with an intention of enhancing thevisitors' inclination to engage. Besides, apple, strawberry, and cola are notonly widely recognized but also distinctly different in flavor. Their popularity guarantees that most participants will have familiar expectations of these tastes, which aids in reliably gauging their reactions and preferences. Additionally, each flavor is associated with a distinct color, which facilitates the segmentation into three distinct hue intervals when programming the system.

References

Banissy,M. J., Jonas, C., & Cohen Kadosh, R. (2014). Synesthesia: An introduction. Frontiersin Psychology, 5. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01414

Bigelow,M. (2014). RGB: You and Me (A Queer, Feminist Analysis of Emotion, Affect,and Materiality within Google Images). https://doi.org/10.7264/N3TQ5ZTW

Deng, J., & Mueller, F. ‘Floyd’. (2023). The “Logic Bonbon”: A ComputableFood, Or an Eatable Computer? Companion Publication of the 2023 ACMDesigning Interactive Systems Conference, 77–80.https://doi.org/10.1145/3563703.3596646

GreenBlue Red—Ellsworth Kelly | The Broad. (n.d.). Retrieved 15 April 2024, fromhttps://www.thebroad.org/art/ellsworth-kelly/green-blue-red

MoMA| Rirkrit Tiravanija: Cooking Up an Art Experience. (n.d.). Retrieved 14 April 2024, fromhttps://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/02/03/rirkrit-tiravanija-cooking-up-an-art-experience/

Smith,R. K., vanDellen, M. R., & Ton, L. A. N. (2021). Makeup Who You Are:Self-Expression Enhances the Perceived Authenticity and Public Promotion ofBeauty Work. Journal of Consumer Research, 48(1), 102–122.https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucaa066

“Untitled”(Portrait of Ross in L.A.), 1991—Felix Gonzalez-Torres—WikiArt.org. (n.d.). Www.Wikiart.Org. Retrieved 15April 2024, fromhttps://www.wikiart.org/en/felix-gonzalez-torres/untitled-portrait-of-ross-in-l-a-1991