Edible speculations: designing everyday oracles for food futures

Author:
Markéta Dolejšová Charles University, Prague, Czech Republicand Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

Search for other papers by Markéta Dolejšová in
Current site
Google Scholar
Close
Restricted access
Get eTOC alerts
Rights and permissions Cite this article

Digital food technologies carry promise for better food futures but they are often problematic in their impact on food cultures. While proponents suggest that food-tech products such as smart kitchenware or diet personalisation services can support efficient food practices, critics highlight various risks. This paper presents our findings from Edible Speculations, a long-term design research project exploring the contested space of food-tech innovation through a series of speculative design (SD) events situated in everyday public contexts. We illustrate the opportunities and limits of eventful SD in supporting critical engagements with food-tech issues through an Edible Speculations case study called the Parlour of Food Futures. Our discussion of selected Parlour events can inform readers interested in food-tech themes as well as those keen on experimenting with eventful approaches to SD research.

  • Altarriba Bertran, F., Jhaveri, S., Lutz, R., Isbister, K. and Wilde, D. (2019). Making sense of human-food interaction, Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, May 4–9, 2019, Glasgow, Scotland, ACM, New York, NY, USA, pp 113.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Baumann, K., Stokes, B., Bar, F. and Caldwell, B. (2017) Infrastructures of the imagination: Community design for speculative urban technologies, Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Communities and Technologies, Troyes, France: ACM, pp 26669.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Blythe, M., Andersen, K., Clarke, R. and Wright, P. (2016) Anti-solutionist strategies: Seriously silly design fiction, Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 496878.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • CBInsights (2018) Hungry for investment: big food races toward startups, 13 March, www.cbinsights.com/research/food-corporate-fund-startup-investment/.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • DiSalvo, C. (2012) Spectacles and tropes: speculative design and contemporary food cultures, The Fibreculture Journal, 20: 10922, https://twenty.fibreculturejournal.org/2012/06/19/fcj-142-spectacles-and-tropes-speculative-design-and-contemporary-food-cultures/.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • DiSalvo, C. (2016) The irony of drones for foraging: exploring the work of speculative interventions, in R.C. Smith, K.T. Vangkilde, M.G. Kjærsgaard, T. Otto, J. Halse and T. Binder (eds), Design Anthropological Futures, London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp 13952.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Dolejšová, M. (2018a) Edible Speculations: Designing for Human-food Interaction. PhD Thesis at National University of Singapore. ScholarBank@NUS Repository, https://scholarbank.nus.edu.sg/handle/10635/150371

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Dolejšová, M. (2018b) Edible Speculations in the parlour of food futures, Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA’18), New York: ACM, Paper alt13, 10 pages.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Dolejšová, M., Altarriba Bertran, F., Wilde, D. and Davis, H. (2019) Crafting and tasting issues in everyday human-food interactions, Companion Publication of the 2019 Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2019, ACM, New York, USA, pp 3614.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Dunne, A. and Raby, F. (2013) Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

  • Elsden, C., Chatting, D., Durrant, A.C., Garbett, A., Nissen, B., Vines, J. and Kirk, D.S. (2017) On speculative enactments, Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Denver, CO: ACM, pp 538699.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Gaver, W. and Dunne, A. (1999) Projected realities: conceptual design for cultural effect, Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, New York, USA, pp 6007.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Hey, M. and Dolejšová, M. (2018) Speculative fiction as companion species in food studies research, The Graduate Journal of Food Studies, 5(2), https://gradfoodstudies.org/2018/12/11/speculative-fiction-as-companion-species/.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Laranjo, F. (2015) Critical everything, 4 August, https://modesofcriticism.org/critical-everything/.

  • Lupton, D. (2017) Cooking, eating, uploading: digital food cultures, in K. LeBesco and P. Naccarato (eds) The Bloomsbury Handbook of Food and Popular Culture, London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp 6679.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Martins, L. (2014) Privilege and oppression: towards a feminist speculative design, in Y. Lim, K. Niedderer, J. Redström, E. Stolterman and A. Valtonen (eds) Design's Big Debates – DRS International Conference 2014, 16–19 June, Umeå, Sweden, pp 98090, https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2014/researchpapers/75.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Michael, M. (2012) De-signing the object of sociology: toward an ‘idiotic’ methodology, The Sociological Review, 60(1_suppl): 16683. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-954X.2012.02122.x

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Miles, M.B., Huberman, A.M., Huberman, M.A. and Huberman, M. (1994) Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook, Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Morabito, G. (2018) Loathed start-up ‘Bodega’ changes name to ‘Stockwell’, Eater, 6 August, www.eater.com/pop-culture/2018/8/6/17655590/bodega-start-up-name-change-stockwell.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Norton, J., Raturi, A., Nardi, B., Prost, S., McDonald, S., Pargman, D., Bates, O., Normark, M., Tomlinson, B., Herbig, N. and Dombrowski, L. (2017) A grand challenge for HCI: Food + sustainability, Interactions, 24(6): 5055. doi: 10.1145/3137095

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Schaefer, G.O. and Savulescu, J. (2014) The ethics of producing in vitro meat, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 31(2): 188202. doi: 10.1111/japp.12056

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Schön, D.A. (1984) The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action, New York, NY: Basic books.

  • Solberg, B. (2018) The Ethics of Nutrigenomics, EFAD – European Federation of the Associations of Dieteticians Professional Practice Committee, May 2018, https://www.efad.org/media/1577/nutrigenomics-and-ethics_efadppc_2018.pdf.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Thackara, J. (2014) Republic of Salivation (Michael Burton and Michiko Nitta), Design and Violence, MoMa, 16 December, https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2013/designandviolence/republic-of-salivation-michael-burton-and-michiko-nitta/.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Tonkinwise, C. (2016) What SCD Is as opposed to Could/Should be. Responses for “21st Century. Design After Design” XXI Triennale di Milano. Academia.edu, http://www.academia.edu/21887979/What_SCD_Is_as_opposed_to_Could_Should_be

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Wilde, D., Underwood, J. and Pohlner, R. (2014) PKI: Crafting critical design, Proceedings of the 2014 Conference on Designing Interactive Systems, ACM, New York, NY, pp 36574.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Willett, W., Rockström, J., Loken, B., Springmann, M., Lang, T., Vermeulen, S., Garnett, T., Tilman, D., DeClerck, F. and Wood, A. (2019) Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems, The Lancet, 393(10170): 44792. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)31788-4

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • Wilson, M. (2016) This $1,500 toaster oven is everything that’s wrong with Silicon Valley design, Fast Company, 15 November, www.fastcodesign.com/3065667/this-1500-toaster-oven-is-everything-thats-wrong-with-silicon-valley-design.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation
  • De-extinction Deli. Designed by Center for Genomic Gastronomy, showcased at FACT (Foundation for Art and Creative Technology) on October 5th 2013, https://genomicgastronomy.com/work/2013-2/deli/.

  • Edible Futures. Curated by The Dutch Institute of Food & Design, showcase initiated at the Dutch Embassy in Canada on April 27th 2019 (travelling exhibition), https://thedifd.com/articles/an-exhibition-about-the-future-of-food/.

  • Future Food House. Exhibition curated by Marije Vogelzang, showcased at World Food Festival Rotterdam in September 19th - October 27th 2013, https://marijevogelzang.nl/portfolio_page/future-food-house/.

  • GhostFood. Designed by Miriam Simun and Miriam Songster, commissioned by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation for the multi-site exhibition Marfa Dialogues/NY in 2013, http://songster.net/projects/ghostfood/.

  • Meat the Future. Exhibition curated by Next Nature Network, showcased online since 2013, www.nextnature.net/projects/meat-the-future/.

  • Republic of Salivation. Designed by Burton Nitta, showcased at Stroom, Den Haag in 2012, http://www.burtonnitta.co.uk/RepublicOfSalivation.html.

Markéta Dolejšová Charles University, Prague, Czech Republicand Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

Search for other papers by Markéta Dolejšová in
Current site
Google Scholar
Close

Content Metrics

May 2022 onwards Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 1031 559 14
Full Text Views 36 1 0
PDF Downloads 29 4 0

Altmetrics

Dimensions

Global Discourse
An interdisciplinary journal of current affairs