Crossing Over: The Art & Science of Multisensory Perception

About

CROSSING OVER: The Art and Science of Multisensory Perception

Location: Senior Common Room, Darwin Building, Royal College of Art

Time: 4th July 

This joint mini one-day symposium and exhibition between the Royal College of Art and University of Oxford will explore how our perception can be potentially used in a creative context. Three researchers from each institution will discuss the following keywords during this symposium.

KEYWORDS: synaesthesia, design provocation, sensory manipulation, multi-sensory integrations, food and flavor, vision and taste, sensory experiments, experimental psychology, cognitive neuroscience, crossmodal research
 

SPEAKERS:

11:00 – 11:10am: Bruna Petreca (RCA)

Welcoming

11.10–11.30am: Paris Selinas (RCA)
The food industry has developed sophisticated tools and methods to measure the mechanical properties of food. However, the tasting experience is an affective, multisensory phenomenon that goes beyond the composition of ingredients. This presentation will explore how different ways of human expression (verbal language, visual representations & embodiment) can – or, in cases, cannot, enable people to articulate their tasting experiences. This work lies on the intersection of Human - Computer Interaction, Food Design and Open Design. Implications and opportunities for these three areas will be discussed.
 

11.30–11.50am: Chang Hee Lee (RCA)
This presentation considers that the extensive inputs of synesthesia have exceptional potentials that are capable of conceiving exciting design provocations. The presentation will cover how the intriguing properties of synesthesia can contribute to and encourage design outputs within the context of design. The presentation will mainly discuss three different properties of synaesthesia (translation, narrative and mental imagery) and will explore how they can potentially be applied in creative practices.
 

11.50am–12.40pm: Alejandro Salgado Montejo (Oxford), Clea Dese Brock (Oxford), Mathew Tompkins (Oxford)
How stable is our perception? Is perception the same as reality? Can we hack perception to alter reality? We have created a sensory story that involves vision, taste, touch, and sound, in order to discuss how our sensory experience greatly defines who we are, what we think, and what we believe. We have cooked up a series of demonstrations designed to invite you to explore your sensory experience and challenge you to rethink the senses. First Matt Tompkins will talk about vision and sensory illusions and how we can manipulate attention to create surprise and hack our visual experience. Afterwards Alejandro Salgado-Montejo will talk about the body as a mediator of vision-taste associations and their implications in everyday experiences and expectations. Finally Clea Desebrock will discuss how sound can mediate many of our everyday experiences and how we can tailor sonic messages to hack vision and taste.
 

Q&A: 12:40 - 13:00pm

Round table discussion, chaired by Bruna Petreca

Exhibition: 13:00 - 13:30pm

WHEN

Monday, July 4, 2016 from 11:00 AM to 1:30 PM (BST) - Add to Calendar

WHERE

Senior Common Room (Darwin Building, please follow the signs) - SW7 2EU, Kensington Gore, Royal College of Art, London, UK, London