Our senses are an essential part of how we perceive the world around us. We select fresh food and sexual partners with our nose. We use our fingers to assess the quality of fabrics. And whether we feel at ease or scared is largely determined by what we hear. But we don’t always know how to communicate these feelings. This is why our research focuses on developing a vocabulary of symbols for sensory experiences.
Marres is collaborating with five Master’s students (Giulia Bosa, criminology; Aishwarya Kharade, dentistry; Utkarsh Mittal, international business; and Justin de Raikem, psychology) as part of the ‘5enses’ team. Joining forces, we are investigating emoticons and symbol-based descriptions for the senses, with the ultimate goal of launching a new set of symbols. This new symbol ‘language’ can be used in Marres’s ‘Training the Senses’ workshops, contributing to how we experience, understand, share, and use our senses.
As a final assignment, the students made a special book – Marres 5ENSES 2019 – that explains their research and has some fun assignments to try out.
If you want to know more about the story behind the group, please visit 5enses’ website here.