Erika Marthins: I really wanted to incorporate food and the digital into my diploma project, so I found it very interesting to integrate algorithms into edible material. Food and digital traces are topics that really fascinate me and I think it is like infinitely possible to augment food. I also think when you do different collaborations with other professions the results are very experimental prototypes. The creation push the individual to question and innovate very new things, so I think it’s combining technology and culinary arts is something that will open the door to a new niche of practices.
Sputnik: Perhaps you could just tell us a bit more about your creations and how they actually work?
Erika Marthins: So the Deguster l’augmente is a very experimental project trying to explore the potential of integrating data information into food, so really to develop this project I asked myself the question how we could consider food in a new kind of way, like with the progress of today’s technologies. Deguster l’augmente is including three different desserts that are expanding the data in a poetic way with animation, perception and the sound.
The first one is animated dessert that is using robots that is made of gelatin, so there are no electronics [involved], so they are completely edible. With the air you can create like animations into the desserts.
And then there is like a lollipop where you use external lights to refract the hidden message that is completely contained inside, so you don’t see anything on the surface, but its only with the light that you see the message or the image that is hidden inside.
The third one is a chocolate disk; so you can actually listen and to eat the sound that you listen to.
Sputnik: How long do your products last before people are not allowed to eat them?
Erika Marthins: The basic idea is that you shouldn’t keep it; you should consume it because it is a onetime experience. The idea is to not be able to reuse it. As you said its food so it’s very limited in time; you definitely have to consume it, I would say in a week.
Sputnik: What kind of feedback have you received for your creations? Have you had any large corporate organizations want to go into business with you, to sell and produce these creations of yours through the retail network?
Erika Marthins: Not yet. This is a product that I really love and I think it’s kind of my passion: food and technology together, I mean it’s just like awesome. This is the product that I will definitely continue, I just have to see in what kind of direction and what would be the best way to actually continue it.
