Pressure cook
The Pressure Cook is a speculative interactive installation exploring social cooking and teamwork under technological control. Participants cook together while the system rotates tasks, monitors counter cleanliness, and prompts interaction, using flashing lights, sound cues, and overbearing instructions to intentionally create pressure. The project highlights how technology mediates collaboration, revealing how systems that claim to improve teamwork can induce stress, mechanical behaviour, and self-awareness.
The Ask
Cooking together can be both a bonding experience and a source of conflict. Differences in habits, styles, and cultural backgrounds often create tension, uneven participation, and misunderstandings in shared kitchens. Current approaches to addressing social challenges like this often rely on technology but such solutions don’t always produce the desired results and can sometimes make collaboration feel forced or mechanical.
The Design
The Pressure Cook demonstrates how and why technology can both mediate and complicate social interaction. By rotating tasks, monitoring cleanliness, and prompting social behaviour, the installation exaggerates technological control to provoke reflection on teamwork, cooperation, and how digital systems shape human behaviour.
the development
The project evolved through research, ideation, prototyping, and iterative testing. Early paper prototypes confirmed that the system successfully created a sense of pressure and uncertainty, which aligned with our goal. However, participants didn’t have enough time to complete meaningful portions of their tasks before rotations occurred, so we adjusted timing, recipe visibility, and prompt clarity. The physical system was then built using Arduino, LEDs, ArUco markers, and sound sensors to rotate tasks, monitor cleanliness, and track social interaction. Iterations focused on balancing playful tension with clarity, ensuring participants could engage meaningfully while experiencing the intended social “pressure.”
the takeaway
The Pressure Cook illustrates how technology can mediate but also complicate social collaboration. The installation highlights the tension between automation and human behaviour, showing that enforcing fairness or cooperation digitally can create stress and mechanical participation. The project encourages reflection on how technology influences relationships, teamwork, and emotional dynamics, and demonstrates that discomfort can be a powerful tool for insight.
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