🔎Research Framework

1. Research questions / Hypothesis

Research Questions

1. How do capitalist agendas shape and reinforce mindless food consumption habits?

2. In what ways have modern consumption patterns distanced us from ancient, wild, or intuitive food decision-making?

3. Can interactive installations create friction that disrupts ingrained consumption behaviors?

4. How does an individual awakening in food consciousness contribute to a larger collective shift?

Hypothesis

If participants experience friction in their consumption choices through interactive installations, they will become more aware of how capitalist systems shape their eating habits, leading to a shift toward more intuitive, self-guided food choices.

2. Theoretical Framework

This project explores the role of design fiction, speculative design, and diegetic prototypes in disrupting capitalist food ideologies. Drawing from gastrophysics, semiotics, and sensory ethnography, it investigates how sensory disruption can provoke unlearning and challenge ingrained consumption habits. Influenced by posthumanism, ecosocialism, and half-earth socialism, the project prioritizes personal agency and a bottom-up approach to systemic change.

2.b. Resources and references

• Dunne & Raby – Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming

  • This is the foundational text on speculative design and diegetic prototypes, aligning with my approach to provoking change through designed experiences.

• Charles Spence – Gastrophysics: The New Science of Eating

  • The book explores multisensory eating experiences, relevant to how sensory disruption can reshape perceptions of food.

• Kate Soper – Post-Growth Living: For an Alternative Hedonism

  • It tackles the relentless pursuit of economic growth and seeking a thoughtful, radical reimagining of prosperity that prioritizes ecological sustainability and collective well-being over consumerism.

• Jón Þór Pétursson - “We are all consumers”: co-consumption and organic food

  • The research paper analyses the motivations and emotional correlations to the way we consume in the world. It explores what would happen if producers think of themselves as consumers.

  • https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15528014.2021.1882176

• Yi-Chieh Lin - Sustainable food, ethical consumption and responsible innovation: insights from the slow food and “low carbon food” movements in Taiwan

  • This paper examines two food initiatives in Taiwan that address broad social concerns that have informed changes in activists’ perceptions of food citizenship in relation to globalization.

  • https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15528014.2019.1682885

Research methods

1. Participant Observation & Ethnography

   • Use sensory ethnography techniques to document how participants react beyond verbal responses (e.g., body language, pacing, physical engagement).

2. Semi-Structured Interviews & Verbal Reflections

   • Ask participants about their expectations before interacting with the installation and their reflections afterward.

   • Questions could explore how much they feel in control of their food choices and whether the experience changed their awareness.

3. Sensory Mapping & Multimodal Feedback

   • Use alternative methods (drawing, movement, or sensory descriptions) to let participants express their experiences beyond words.

   • This could involve having them map their sensory reactions (e.g., color associations, textures they found unsettling, etc.).

4. Experimental Prototyping & Iterative Testing

   • Run multiple versions of my interventions to test which elements create the strongest "waking up" effect.

   • Adjust accordingly.