Taste Maker
This interactive combines physical computing and generative graphics and music to give visitors the experience of attempting to create the perfectly balanced flavor profile.
An old soda fountain scene—vintage-style fixtures, fancy advertisements, decorated mirror—is actually the setting for a digital simulation of what it’s like to be a nineteenth-century entrepreneur attempting to mix a new delicious soft drink.
At two side-by-side stations, visitors turn big dials representing the range of tastes: sweet to tart, mild to spicy, silky to sharp, rich and crisp, smooth and tingly. As visitors turn the dials and create different combinations, sometimes turning more than one dial at a time, they see coming from behind the mirror a synesthetic swirl of colorful particles that represent what their own creation might “taste like.”
At the same time, visitors hear their flavor mixture as well. Each flavor has its own music motif, and as they turn a dial, they see and hear the interplay of visuals and sound. What does crisp-tasting look like? What does it sound like? When they press the Test My Mix button, their own combination is submitted to analysis and assessment (which falls short, of course). Pressing the Coca-Cola button creates a new flavor that transcends analysis.