RE.TREAT — Exploring Physical and Emotional Sensory Perceptions in the Mouth
How can mouthfeel stimulate memories and emotions?
The combination of perceptions captured by our senses, and intrinsic actions of eating like licking, chewing and swallowing stimulate far more than just our taste buds. RE.TREAT captures the physical sensations known as «mouth feel» including aspects of memory and emotion. Using ice-cream as an explorative research field, I discovered that its consumption provides a small time-out from the everyday life by triggering senses, memories, and emotions of relaxation and happiness.
RE.TREAT focuses on the mouth experience and intrigues the mind using surprise and sensory incongruity that result from unexpected pairings of different types of sensory information, such as size, shape, flavour and texture. The result is a series of «Mouth Toys», analogous objects designed to provoke such a time-out.
