I took inspiration of this interactive piece from a short Makey Makey video. The person was touching waters in jars to complete the circuit and I felt the whole idea of using liquid was very cool. I want to build upon the whole idea of touching liquids. Instead of touching, I figured out I could also just drink the liquid.
Just a short conceptual sturucture of how drinking can trigger a signal in Makey Makey.
The overall theme of this piece would be flashbacks triggered by the sense of drinking a particular type of drink. I will have different containers and different types of drink set up. When I drink each one of them, animations of flashbacks related to that particular drink would pop up. For instance, when I drink coffee, an animation of a cozy cafe in a nice afternoon would show, along with the atmospheric sound effects.
What I want to achieve through this installation is that I want to convey a feeling of synesthesia, that you can almost hear and see the taste of a drink. In fact, the whole idea of this piece came from one of my synesthesia experience. Due to COVID, I went back to my home country and stayed out of campus for a year and a half. And just when I had my first cup of DD Latte here, I felt the synesthetic deja vu. It was like a time travel back to pre-pandemic. Until then, I started to realize I almost forgot how much life was better back then. And I regret not cherishing those moments. So the drinks, each with a little flashback, is the museum of my under-appreciated memories.
Artistic question: Is there any way I can make this whole installation more visually compelling (not just a few bottles of liquid lying on a plate and nothing else)?
I sympathize and can relate to the idea of not cherishing the past moments. I think the idea is very cool. One opinion is that you could also do different foods, such as foods you would have on the beach or a dish that “only mother could make.”
Yeah I also thought of that idea but during my trials and errors I found not all food tend to be conductive. Foods such as cake or cookies might just have too much air inside so they cannot transfer eletric signal that well. The main reason to go for liquid is becaue they are much more conductive. I could look at some fruits or veggies though.
How many various liquids do you plan on using in your piece?
For now I would stick to maximum 3 types of liquid.
For your drink question, I think that putting the liquid into something that is iconic for that drink. For example putting coffee in a coffee cup. I am sure you could also customize and decorate the containers as well to signal at the animation. I am not sure if you are trying to keep the drink containers transparent but I do not personally feel like that matters.
To make it more visually appealing, maybe you could put them all in the same type of cup/container to have a sense of uniformity, but also decorate the cups with some stylized lettering that shows what’s inside of them and the mood you have while drinking them.
I think something that could take all of the individual drinks and make them into a single piece is putting them on a lazy-susan-esque rotating platform. Whether each drink is in a specifically styled cup (ex: milkshake cup, coffee mug, wine glass, etc.) or all in the same type of cup, this would pull them all together in a cohesive way
Just a suggestion. Something similar to a diner delivery tray may work too, as if the memories are being “served” to you.
I would like to kind of answer your question, this isn’t technically what you asked for but I think it’s relevant.
One way you could make the whole installation more compelling would be through audio, not visuals. Drinking could trigger a continuous sound which represents the liquid being drained. It would be especially powerful if this sound was somehow distorted the longer (or more) you drink.