Chicago - MCA

Olafur Eliasson
'Take Your Time'

http://www.mcachicago.org/exhibitions/exh_detail.php?id=201
“Take your time: Olafur Eliasson is the first comprehensive survey in the United States of works by Olafur Eliasson, whose immersive environments, sculptures, and photographs elegantly recreate the extremes of landscape and atmosphere in his native Scandinavia. Drawn from collections worldwide, the presentation spans over fifteen years of Eliasson's career. His constructions, at once eccentric and highly geometric, use multicolored washes, focused projections of light, mirrors, and natural elements such as water, stone, and moss to shift the viewer's perception of place and self, foregrounding the sensory experience of each work. By transforming the gallery into a hybrid space of nature and culture, Eliasson prompts an intense engagement with the world and offers a fresh consideration of everyday life.” -- (MCA website)






"Moss Wall"

Most of Olafur Lliasson’s pieces on display play with subtleties of light, reflection and refraction, but some pieces have a stronger physical presence which engages the use of more senses than sight alone. Each room is enormous and the presence of the body within the space becomes part of the work as it is surrounded by his light and reflected in various surfaces of installations bouncing light off each other. In this way the entire body is engaged as it is enveloped by the space and caught within the work.

In one large room one wall is covered in what at first appears to be some kind of spongy organic matter. As one enters the room the dewy, musty smell first serves to indicate that this is in fact real plant life – possibly still alive. When closer to the moss covered surface, many people feel the spongy plant – one girl even pressed her whole body into it as though considering it as a potential material for bedding. The smell and the feel of the plant inform visitors that it is a living plant – a detail that cannot be confirmed solely through visual observation.

Though this plant was in a completely different context than the exhibit of plants on display at the Field Museum, it made me consider the differences between the experience of this moss in an art exhibit, as opposed to the experience of artificial and sealed off plants at the Field Museum. The difference was that this exhibit had life – in every sense – whereas the Field Museum’s exhibits of plants was lifeless and out of reach. This is somewhat unusual for artwork that is generally visual, for here it is environmental, and impresses upon all of the senses.

"Beauty"

Mist and light
Walking through the exhibit I heard something that sounded almost like a light rain shower, and following the noise I was led into a dark room where I found Beauty.

A spotlight shines through a curtain of fine mist. The play of light and water shifts as one moves around it and through it. When walking through the mist a halo of rainbow appears overhead refracted in the fine droplets of water that settle on the skin like a veneer of cool sweat. The mist is vaporous enough not to truly wet a person but to merely cover one in a dew. The sound of the water spraying is reminiscent of a hot water spring and fills the dark room that is empty but for the water and light in the middle. The quality of the air in the entire room is moist – which seems to complement the moss wall in another room of the exhibit.

Beauty provides a tactile experience that not everyone was eager to explore. After observing for some time, it was clear that the children were more readily willing to interact with the piece with their entire bodies by running through it or reaching out their hands to feel it. Some of the adults would try this also if another had, but often if the room was full only of hesitant adults, and none of them dared to stand in the mist, then all followed suit and followed the standard museum dictum of look but don’t touch. This behavior reflects the way in which people expect to observe work in a museum setting – primarily – and usually solely – using their vision. People are conditioned to observe from a distance and discouraged since a very early age not to do otherwise, most especially in an art museum.

Interestingly, it is very common for children’s museums (such as the Crown Family Play Lab in the Field Museum) to involve the entire body in the exploration of the exhibits. Children are expected to learn by exploring with their entire body – it is curious that this should this be so discouraged in adults.
Sight is generally considered in the Western world as the intellectual sense that is best suited for analysis and learning. As children are still in a state of cognitive development, it is expected that they will still depend upon the ‘lower’ senses such as touch and taste, while adults are supposed to evolve to depend solely on sight in order to intellectual explore and understand something. But what is lost as a result of this viewpoint? As we become adults we are cultivated (conditioned) to resist any temptation to explore with senses other than the distant sense of vision.

San Francisco

Exploratorium
http://www.exploratorium.edu

Oscylinderscope

“ watching sound” – a synaesthetic experience

watch sound waves on strings as they are plucked and hear sound
‘a spinning barrel lets you watch as vibrating strings create sound

A visual affect called ‘The Persistance of Vision’ is created as one plucks the strings – the tighter the strings the smaller the waves appear – though waves are not truly produced. The sound of tight strings is also higher.

Here is another synaesthetic exhibit where one watches sound:

Navigate With Your Ears

Going on a tour of the San Francisco Bart system (a city train system) with a blind man as he guides you through the sounds that allow him to navigate the city – sounds from street musicians, to escalators, to change in machines all inform the audibly constructed space.

The participator sits on a bench staring at the wall with no visual stimulation and wears a set of head phones. The experience of the audio tour is heightened by the absence of having anything to look at – there is nothing to do but listen as the sounds of the city come to life.

Touch Theater

Identification of everyday objects that one cannot see but only touch with their hands placed through a curtain into a box where the various objects are layed out. Although the objects are very ordinary they are not all obvious to identify. The exhibit demonstrates our reliance on vision as we navigate the world – and how different the world would be if perceived solely though tactile exploration.

Tactile Dome

(interview with Miro)

The tactile dome is a fully immersive environment where one enters a completely dark world where one must navigate through a space with only the senses of touch and sound to guide them. Only one or two people enter the dome at a time. While it is playful in its a design - much like a maze or playpen for children that one must climb through different tunnels and crawlspaces -



Physical Science -- Physically Sensed

Cloud Rings

participants push down on a metsl plate creating a vortex by forcing a stream of fog through a vortex in the center. The experience involves the entire body in the movement causing the air to rise by pushing down.

Tornado

People can run through the warm air as it is sucked upward from a fan above that simulates the updraft of warm air as it occurs in the creation of tornados.
The experience is kinaesthetic and tactile.

San Diego

Reuben H. Fleet Science Center
http://www.rhfleet.org/exhibits.html

(many of the same exhibits that were at the Exploratorium)

SIKUS -- ‘use the tubes to pick up particular frequencies made in the room’

People place ear up to tube, and based upon the length of the tube all the noises in the room would resound as a higher or lower pitched hum.

Chicago - Art Institute

The Touch Gallery
http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/exhibition/touch

Overview: Visitors to the Art Institute of Chicago now have the opportunity to experience how the sense of touch can enrich their appreciate of art. The Touch Gallery is located in Gallery 10, on the lower level of the Allerton Building.

Made of bronze and marble and representing different periods, the sculptures in the gallery all represent the human face. Through touch visitors can discover the facial expression, accessories, and style of dress as well as discern an artwork's form, scale, temperature, and texture in ways that sight cannot provide.


The touch gallery was rather disappointing. Several busts made of stone, marble, and bronze are on display with Braille descriptions nearby. They do not seem to have been created for the sense of touch in particular, but were picked probably because of the various textures they possess. Although they offer the dimensionality that can be read by touch, it seems that they were created primarily for the sighted. I closed my eyes to explore several of the busts, as did other sighted visitors, but the experience did not add anything to my visual experience. I had already seen the busts and was using touch as a supplement to what I had seen. I noticed that many did not close their eyes to explore but instead simply glided a hand over the surface as if to quickly assess that the material was what their vision suggested. The tactile sense was used to confirm what the eyes had already established.

This exhibit might have been more interesting and playful if visitors were challenged to explore the busts without being able to see them, and then challenged to identify the bust by sight afterward – testing the accuracty of their sense of touch and letting sight confirm what the hands had established. This would have encouraged a more engaged encounter with the object through tactile impressions.

Chicago - Field Museum

The Botanical World in Replica – Plants of the World Exhibit

For most people when a familiar plant is mentioned particular recollections of scenes in which that plant would be found arise, often involving not merely the color or shape of the plant, but also evoking a memory of how the plant might smell, or how its fruit might taste.

At the Field Museum many plants of the world are on display for visitors to view – but unfortunately only a viewing is allowed. Although the plants are artificial (cast in wax, resin, etc.) the plants are protectively sealed behind glass casings, so even if they were real – and some do appear to be dried leaves or pieces of wood from real plants – one could not touch or smell any of the plants on display. It seems curious that an educational display of botany should neglect sensory information that is so critical to truly understanding a plant’s full nature. While the models are intricate and represent the plant very accurately, they only serve the eyes, while anyone walking in a botanical garden would agree that the true experience of a plant is multisensory. For many, when a familiar plant is mentioned, particular recollections of scenes in which that plant would be found arise, often involving not merely the color or shape of the plant, but also evoking a memory of how the plant might smell, or how its fruit might taste.

In Museum Manners: The Sensory Experience of the Museum, Constance Classen recounts the experience of Celia Fiennes in the 18th Century at Oxford’s Physic Garden:

The Physick Garden afforded great diversion and pleasure, the variety of flowers and plants would have entertained one a week, the few remarkable things I took notice off was . . . the Sensible plant [Mimosa], take but a leafe between finger and thumb and squeeze it and it immediately curles up together as if pained, and after some tyme opens abroad again . . . there is also the Humble plant that grows on a long slender stalke and do but strike it, it falls flatt on the ground stalke and all, and after some tyme revives againe and stands up . . . there is theWormwood sage . . . , a narrow long leafe full of ribbs, in your mouth the flavour is strong of Wormwood to the taste.
(in Museum Manners, p. 898)

Celia Fiennes' experience of the plants was a multisensory encounter involving touch, taste, and smell as well as sight. By comparison, the exhibit of plant life (simulated life) seems lackluster and is uninspiring. To know a plant means knowing its scent, how it feels, and in some cases, how it tastes. The displays offer a simulation for purely visual recognition, while denying the use of any other sense in the process of gaining familiarity of the objects (in this case plants) displayed.

Museums – and the display of death

While walking through the Field Muesum I discovered to the side of the main hall a mummified female form in fetal position that had been naturally mummified by the desert sands of Egypt. She lay in a glass case for visitors to view as they pass between exhibits. I was struck by the realization that only in a museum setting could a dead human figure be put on public display in this way and not repulse or incite negative reactions from people. I thought this pointed to an interesting quality of the museum experience and reveals the detachment many have towards the objects on display behind glass walls – out of reach and beyond all other sensory perception except (and perhaps more intimate than) sight.

The contemporary museum effectively provides the distance necessary between that which is on display and the observer. Museums are unique in the way that they provide an acceptable context in which to observe what normally one might shy away from – particularly in cases of displaying remains of human life.
One might expect to see dead things at a museum of natural history, but they also expect an appropriate amount of distance to exist so that they can avoid any discomfiture that might otherwise arise if confronted with something like a dead human figure.


In contrast to the contemporary museum’s distance, Classen recounts stories of people handling and even eating exhibits as the ultimate act of ownership – some even eating mummified flesh. The mythical and mystical essence of a mummy was possibly thought to be transferred through the gustatory experience of consumption. Unlike the experience of most museums today - distance was neither provided nor desired. I suspect that if the mummy I saw in the Field museum had not been behind glass and shielded from the observer – and in turn, the observer shielded from it, many people would have been appalled by the exhibition of death so close at hand. One expectation of a museum today is that it provide a comfortable amount of distance between the object of observation and the observer, and I have seen instances where interactive exhibits are approached with great caution by visitors because the normal amount of distance is breached.

Crown Family Play Lab – for children 6 and under
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/playlab/highlights.asp

While at the Field Museum I also visited the Crown Family Play Lab – an interactive, educational space intended for children 6 and under. In an exhibit meant to educate them about diurnal living habits, children are provided costumes to dress as various creatures, such as bats, and play in an area that simulates a scene such creatures would inhabit. There are other activities, such as picking and husking corn (fake corn), grinding it, and going through the process of creating tortillas. There are other areas where objects are on display, such as bones, and children are allowed to handle them, arrange objects in groups, etc. All the activities are very physically exploratory and hands-on. While it seemed to the children this was little more than any other play room – in the context of a museum it is interesting to look at what kind of behavior is allowed, even encouraged, by museums in contrast to what is expected or encouraged behavior for adults. In the adult exhibits, most often everything is hands-off, look but do not touch. The body is not involved, exhibits cater mostly to the eyes. While it is accepted that children learn by involving their entire bodies and all their senses, adults are expected to learn primarily by sight.


Sand Drawings – Nahal (a tactile and kinesthetic experience)

I found one exhibit in the Field Museum that was for adults and allowed for physical interaction of some kind – and that was provided by boxes of sand which were before a display showing sand drawings called Nahal – ‘the path.’ Several common patterns were displayed and people were encouraged to try to replicate the sand drawings by tracing their finger through the sand in long gliding, continuous lines. Here the kinesthetic experience does enrich one’s appreciation for the art form as one can experience the difficulty in creating such smooth symmetrical designs. It is said that in this craft to hesitate means imperfection – and when one strokes one’s fingers through the sand to create the elaborate designs one can feel the truth in this. The best and smoothest lines are created when one moves one’s hand without hesitation, and gently glides it over the surface in sweeping strokes. While one can appreciate the beauty of these sand drawings by simply looking at images, the experience of trying to create one makes one appreciate it all the more.