How Does Taste Look?

Inform­a­tion Aes­thet­ics points to a great back­ground art­icle on the visual rep­res­ent­a­tion of taste in Rata­touille (a movie I abso­lutely recom­mend — great story, superb anim­a­tion). I watched these sequences and didn’t think much about them — but what a great ques­tion : how can one visu­ally demon­strate the sen­sa­tion of taste? Addi­tion­ally, how do tastes sound — the anim­a­tions that Michael Gagne cre­ated for the movie were used as inspir­a­tion for the accom­pa­ny­ing soundtrack. Is this a sign of sens­ory con­ver­gence? That fla­vours will com­bine and pro­duce an entirely new visu­al­iz­a­tion makes abso­lute sense, but how do you account for syn­ergy or for cata­lytic beha­viour. What a won­der­ful chal­lenge to be presen­ted with and to muse about.
There is a lot more to dis­cover at Michael Gagne’s site. His work had appeared in a string of well known pro­duc­tions. Moreover, Gagne is a Québe­cois and Sheridan gradu­ate — so won­der­fully close to home.
I won­der what smell looks like?