Poultry-geist

Digital Media: Ambiance (Spring 2018-19, Harvard GSD VIS-2223)

Students: Oliver Luo, Audrey Haque, Jake Schonberger, Sinan Goral

 

The Poultry-geist project/experience explores ways in which our dining rituals of the future may adapt to a changing environment. Set in a dystopian future many centuries from now, the story begins with a recovered archival video dating from 2389 that depicts fine diners enjoying food. In the installation that follows, we invite participants to equip sterile suits and face masks to experience 24th century dining, where bland gruel slurped through tubes is augmented with poultry scents pumped into the nosepiece.

To achieve this, we employed an ultrasonic water mist maker to vaporize condensed chicken stock. The wearers’ nose pieces were directly connected to an air pump in the scent container, effectively isolating their olfactory sense to only chicken stock vapor gently forced into their nasal cavity, thus altering or augmenting what they were eating and tasting (in the experiment, we opted for plain soylent) with the aroma of poultry.

 
Live demonstration at Final Review Presentations. Jurors sample the fine dining of the year 2389.

Process photos and some of the components