In our group we were excited about the potential of technology to support novel forms of shared eating experiences. Our resulting recipe, IntrosPicnic, is a food-tech system that allows people to share a close understanding of what is happening within and outside their bodies during the eating process.
IntrosPicnic consists of two technological artifacts: a swallowable DeepFood sensor and a computational MouthShare mouthpiece that can be attached to one’s palate. All members of the IntrosPicnic dinner party are encouraged to swallow a sensor at the beginning of the meal. Once in the diner’s gut, the sensor monitors their food intake, digitising the information to create a model of the diner’s food experience.
This data is then made available for everyone else to experience: the computational mouthpiece can reproduce a range of multi-sensory stimuli (taste, texture, smell, temperature…) and, as such, it can bring to life and replicate the digital models of the food-experiences captured by the sensors. IntrosPicnic thus enables diners to share a food experience in new ways, by making public all that takes place inside a diners’ guts.
During the ideation process, we focused on the potential of such technologies to afford novel and exciting food-tech experiences. We did not turn our group discussion to deeper social, cultural, economic, or planetary implications of what life might be like, if these were real – but we offer our recipe as a starting point and provocation for others who are keen on discussing and bringing the recipe forward.