Crook, Geoffrey. 2008. The Question: Could a multi-sensory approach to design facilitate a re-enchantment of the food industry in Britain?. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London [Thesis]

Preview

Text (The Question: Could a multi-sensory approach to design facilitate a re-enchantment of the food industry in Britain?) DES_thesis_CrookGR_2008.pdf - Accepted Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (54MB) | Preview

Abstract or Description

This thesis explores the potential of design industries ability to re-enchant the food industry in Britain in 2007. My research is informed by the increasing evidence of the negative impact on human and biosphere wellbeing and industrialization practice in food production and marketing. I highlight the connection between design's promotion of the hegemony of visuality and the marginalization of opportunities to construct connections between food source and its quality through multi-sensory engagement.

I have adapted Webber's (2000) idea of disenchantment to describe a condition .in which the deterioration of quality of food experience. I argue that industrialization has created a loss of intangible qualities and traditions that have a clear potential to provide deep sources of pleasure and meaning to participants.

I have focused on the relationship between design and food in order to evidence how design has become a tool of instrumental rationality by primarily servicing the short-term economic agendas of corporate business.

I argue that design's focus on the role of seduction has led to the marginalization of a latent ability to connect consumers and producers to value through their non-visual senses. I propose that a multi-sensory form of design is capable of informing the restoration/creation of a deeper and more reflective relationship with the food chain.

I argue that the route to this outcome is through the re-evaluation and re-education of the role that multi-sensory aesthetics play in the construction of promoting more benign rituals of production and consumption.

I use evidence of multi-sensory practice in the non-industrialized and ethical food sector as an analogy and source that could sensory awareness to the designer's portfolio. I draw on a wide range of evidence to inform and support my explanation of the origins and character of the syndrome of industrialized production, marketing and consumption. My goal is informed by a concern to demonstrate that multi-sensory design could support the viability of alternative production and consumption strategies

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Identification Number (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.25602/GOLD.00028839
Keywords:	design industries; food industry; food production; marketing; multi-sensory engagement; multi-sensory aesthetics
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Design
Date:	2008
Item ID:	28839
Date Deposited:	23 Jun 2020 15:41
Last Modified:	08 Sep 2022 12:43
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/28839

View statistics for this item...

Edit Record (login required)