Recording the rest of our senses: touch, smell, and taste. 2

Recording and reproducing the senses aside from seeing and hearing (taste, smell, touch) has not yet been fully realized. The recording and sharing of senses is difficult, unless we are talking about seeing or hearing, and even then, there is a lot lost in the capture. We have mastered a very clear record of what we can see in photography and videography.

Recording touch

How do we begin to record what we touch? With haptics, like a remote robot glove, we might be able to record and play a touch. We’re just not there yet. When we are, we may never leave our homes. It’s very difficult to record touch, comparative to capturing a voice message or selfie. Poetry begins to capture touch, great literature approaches the capture of touch, but these require an investment and openness comparative to viewing the selfie. Something that is well written, that explains why something was an overwhelming, rewarding, or delicious experience, can lead to a sense of touch. But the touch itself is lacking. It’s not exactly the same as a GoPro, where you can really see the experience of the author. It’s not exactly the same as recording something with a good microphone, where you have a much clearer idea of what was heard in a given space for a given time.

Recording smells

We don’t really understand yet how to record smells, although perfume, food, and olfactory marketing begins to speak to it. Scratch and sniff stickers have been around a long time, and culinary scientists are adept at convincing us that we are eating meat when we are actually eating plant based protein. A store in the mall may be able to convince you via your nose to visit their shop. Despite this, there is no way for me to capture or share the smell of the oaks at the top of the hill in the neighborhood I grew up in that quickly brings a rush of conflicted childhood memories. There’s no recorder for that, yet.

Recording Taste

We have no idea how to synthetically record or reproduce the sense of taste in the same way as a photo or audio clip. The combination of flavors and ingredients in a dish lead to that particular taste, experience, memory, and imprint. A meal can lead to bliss at the hands of an accomplished chef. Your favorite dish from your mom may pass along with her. Recreating it synthetically is difficult.

You might say that I should just make the dish from the recipe. A recipe is certainly a record of the instructions for a taste, but it does not capture all of it. A recipe is a instructional recording of a dish. But, there may be other things that we are missing in the recipe. If a chef stirs or bastes a certain way, that might not be captured in the recipe. If the chef uses a California based spinach, and I use a Virginia spinach, the taste may be dramatically changed. Even if we recreate a recipe perfectly, it may still not have exactly the right taste, and we may not know why. We haven’t yet done a very good job of recording and reproducing a particular taste in any artificial form.

What if our smartphones could suddenly, faithfully, and quantifiably reproduce our favorite tastes, smells, and touches? What would that feel like? What would it smell like? What would it taste like? How would it disrupt our current paradigms? How would it affect culinary arts, human relationships, and memory?

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