Conspiratio
Virtual Drinking

2005

Yuki Hashimoto (JP)
Minoru Kojima (JP)
Tomoyasu Mitani (JP)
Satoru Miyajima (JP)
Naohisa Nagaya (JP)
Junichiro Ohtaki (JP)
Akio Yamamoto (JP)
Masahiko Inami (JP)

Drinking is one of a human being’s first sensory impressions. Can this be reconstructed and comprehended virtually? Yuki Hashimoto asked himself this question and then proceeded to answer it with his project “Conspiratio.”

On a computer screen, you select the image of the food and beverage you desire, and you “drink” the courses you order from the glass next to the screen with a so-called “straw-like user interface (SUI)”. In the second part of the installation, comic book characters carry the foodstuffs about, and the user first has to trap them with the glass in order to be able to partake of the food and drink.

For this project, the individual foodstuffs were first imbibed and the resulting data recorded. The SUI enables the installation visitor to experience virtually the sensory impressions given rise to by the act of drinking. The installation thus suggests possibilities of simulating the pleasurable feeling of drinking independently of the particular beverage’s taste and smell.