:: context / intention
This investigation was the first part of the thesis, a experiment to understand better the topic of interest.
The common inspiration for the thesis projects are two phenomena in a consumer society:

Assuming that interaction design has an important role in conducting or constraining these consumer behaviors, this thesis started with an investigation project called BAKEDBITS. This project explored the concept of “Appetite for Technology” by looking at specific issues in the consumer’s relation to electronic objects.

:: what it is
3 objects, each one mainly characterized by being an a electronic object and food.
Click on the images to get more details.

The Bakedbits objects are intentionally ambiguous. Using food as the design material for the electronic devices (body, shell, buttons), they intend to create a tension in our stereotyped assumptions of the properties of an electronic object (use of plastic, water resistant, toxic, very defined shape, throwaway), and in how food should be presented (hygienic, packaged, ephemeral validate, organic). This ambiguity stimulates thinking about these assumptions by offering the possibility of skepticism or belief in the object without constraining it to a specific answer. At the same time, it makes more evident some aspects of the relationship between the user and the object that didn’t become contradictory despite the different contexts.

Paneluce
A lamp than can be consumed as bread.

Some possible Paneluce shapes. Click on the images to know more.

The intention was to make an electronic object that would put together a very common representation of electronic object (a lamp) and of food (bread). This union aimed to investigate the electronic object that is made for ephemeral - even daily - consumption, but still is not completely consumed. If one chooses to consume the object, the entire loaf of bread cannot be eaten because it is the shell and body of the lamp. If the food is consumed, there will be a light bulb and a socket remaining. In this latter case, the light bulb can still be used for other purposes.

 

Cd-lini
This is a compact disc that can be consumed as pasta, just peeling off the metallic label and cooking it.

A prototype made of rice flour and it in a CD-player. Click on the images to know more.

CDs and digital music are banalized goods in the sense that they are easy to acquire (buy, copy or download), are cheap and have a high availability. In the CD-lini, transforming CDs into circular pasta exposes the transitory interest (appetite) in this object and stimulates questions about the appropriate discard for this kind of object.

DolceRadio
This is a radio that can be used as an electronic object and consumed as food simultaneously, consuming its control knobs and shell as food. But, doing that, one is actually taking out functions from the radio.

A prototype made of chocolate and another made of biscuit. Click on the images to know more.

The radio is an example of a technological object that in its original functionality is not as desirable anymore when compared to other, more advanced devices. The DolceRadio tries to regain its attractiveness not by innovation, but by adding seductive qualities using chocolate and adding extra functions. It aims to stimulate questions about the presence of additional characteristics and how they influence desirability.

:: value/potential
Bakedbits intend to distance oneself from the usual patterns of use and disuse of technological objects. This distance facilitates a reflection about our current way to interact with technology. They are expression of a speculative reflection about our appetite in consuming, despite the awareness of the strong and structural differences between the two processes of consumption of food and electronic goods. This speculative ground creates a context where interesting analogies can emerge and stimulate more ideas.