We as humans have evolved vastly through the years and have changed our style of eating as well. Back in the pre-historic era man hunted and eat with his hands. Monkeys our closest evolutionary relatives still use their hands to eat. Through years of evolution man understood how to tame his surrounding environment and make life easier by the invention of tools and other means. Being from India, I still sometimes eat food with my hands. For me, the connection I have while eating with my hands to using utensils is something I cannot explain in words itself . Its more of an experience of sorts. This doesnt imply that we should eat everything with our hands but some kind of soul food which really makes us feel warm inside, according to me, can be enjoyed better with your hands. The flavor and satisfaction experienced is off the charts.

With the brief of this studio being ‘ Future of Gastronomy ‘, I kind of wanted to make people realise what the were losing out on. There is enough interaction in gastronomy according to my beliefs and I did not want to come up with some tried and over-done things in this field. Thus the idea of convincing people came to mind which fit perfectly in a exhibition set-up. It would be an experience which people felt and maybe learned something or felt different from it.

The main challenge of doing this was that I had to firstly convince people to eat with their hands and thus i went into the research of how different cultures eat and experience food.

The idea of the interaction was to teach people how to eat properly with their hands and maybe someday get to eating soul food occasionally or maybe completely change. Thus the glove designed was mearly to convert this hand and eye co-ordination required to eat in with ones hand into haptic patterns which were felt on the users hand. The experience some of the users had lead them to believe in the truth that there is a difference when food is enjoyed with ones hands and this basically was the message I  wanted to give at the end of this studio and through this project I personally feel like I got there.

IaaC MAI- 2018

Students – Shahram Randeria

Faculty – Luis E. Fraguada, Ignacio de Juan-Criex, Irene Rodenas