Sensoaesthetic Materials
About
At the Institute of Making, we are actively conducting research into developing a sensoaesthetic theory of materials. Materials science concerns itself with the physical characterisation of materials, while artists and designers are generally much more interested in the aesthetic side of materials. Applying scientific methodology to the study of the aesthetic, sensual and emotional side of materials – their sensoaesthetic properties - may improve our understanding of how people interact with materials, and may lead to more innovative and multisensory design. In developing a sensoaesthetic theory of materials we aim to forge links between these two material domains.
Background
There is a huge amount of technical information about materials available for scientists, technologists and industrialists to use in their work. Although this information tells us a great deal about the physicality of materials, it sheds very little light on their sensoaesthetic properties. In fact, there is has been very little work which has looked at how the physical properties of materials relate to their sensual and aesthetic properties. Within the world of materials, there exists a big split between the materials science community, those scientists, technologists and industrialists who are interested in the physicality of materials, and those in the materials-arts community who are interested in the sensoaesthetic properties of materials. The two sides do not speak a common language. The overall aim of our research is to attempt to fill in this gap by using scientific methods to study those properties of materials which are largely ignored by materials scientists, yet are vitally important to the materials-arts community.
The sensoaesthetic properties are strongly dependent on perception, and the study of perception falls within the realm of psychology. Psychophysics - the ‘science of the senses’ - is a branch of psychology that uses quantitative measurement techniques to study sensation and perception. Our research directly combines psychophysics with materials science. At first, it may seem that a hard scientific discipline may not shed too much light on the softer side of materials. However, upon closer inspection it becomes obvious that the way we interact with materials, and the sensations and emotions we feel from them, is rooted in their fundamental physical properties.
Our advanced sense of materiality is something we take for granted. Everyone has a huge amount of materials knowledge which they use in all of their interactions with the physical world around them. Your mind is like a database of sensory experiences, and when you come into contact with something your brain pieces together all relevant information and tells you what’s going on. Through your sense of touch, smell, taste, hearing and vision you can amass a huge amount of accurate information very quickly. What your sense are detecting are actually the physical properties of the materials, and it those same physical properties which materials science measures and explains. For example, metals generally feel cool to the touch because they conduct heat away from your skin very quickly. So we can say that, in general, materials with high thermal conductivity will feel cool to the touch. Or if an object is soft to the touch, then we can look at physical variables such as elastic modulus or plasticity to characterise the interaction.
Publications
Laughlin, Z., Naumann, F. and Miodownik, M. 2008. Investigating the Acoustic Properties of Materials with Tuning Forks. Materials & Sensations, Pau (France), Oct. 22–24.
Miodownik, M. 2009. Materials in the Creative Industries. Materials UK. View
Piqueras-Fiszman, B., Laughlin, Z., Miodownik, M. and Spence, C. 2011. Tasting Spoons: Assessing How the Material of a Spoon Affects the Taste of the Food. Food, Quality and Preference 22(7), 628-637. View
Wongsriruksa, S., Howes, P., Conreen M. and Miodownik, M. 2012. The Use of Physical Property Data to Predict the Touch Perception of Materials. Materials & Design 42, 238–244. View
Laughlin, Z., Conreen, M., Witchel, H. J. and Miodownik M. 2011. The Use of Standard Electrode Potentials to Predict the Taste of Solid Metals. Food, Quality and Preference 22(7), 628-637. View
Miodownik, M. 2007. Toward Designing New Sensoaesthetic Materials. Pure Applied Chemistry 79(10), 1635-1641. View