Multi-sensory exhibitions in museums and galleries tend to involve “touch and feel” boxes or surround sound and synthetic smells to add reality to a reconstruction of a first world war trench or a medieval village scene. But a spate of new exhibitions has taken a more conceptual approach.
Tate Sensorium, on show at Tate Britain at the end of summer, demonstrated that the interpretation of art doesn’t have to be entirely visual.
The exhibition, which won the IK Prize 2015, created a multi- sensory experience around four paintings by 20th-century artists: Francis Bacon, David Bomberg, Richard Hamilton and John Latham.
Visitors viewed Latham’s painting Full Stop (1961) with one hand in a device that used ultrasound technology to create tactile sensations. A soundtrack to reflect the painting’s dual nature, composed by an audio specialist, enhanced the experience.
Meanwhile, viewing Bacon’s A Figure in a Landscape (1945) came hand in hand
with evocative mechanical and industrial noise, a mouthful of coal-infused chocolate, with the taste and texture of charcoal, and the aromatic stimulation of smells such as soil, grass and animals pumped into the air.
Sweaty business
Visitors to Tate Sensorium were kitted out with biometric measurement devices to record electrodermal activity, or perspiration, which indicates levels of excitement.
The data was used to create personalised tours around the rest of the gallery’s collection displays, pointing individuals in the direction of paintings that are likely to resonate with them. This idea illustrates how cultural institutions can employ new technologies to assess the impact of artwork on audiences.
“Museums are always looking to diversify and expand their audiences by looking at how different demographics approach art,” says Tony Guillan, the visual arts and multimedia producer at Tate.
“The tech generation are used to living in immersive worlds fed by technology, so they find a multi-sensory approach a better mode of interpretation than text on a wall.”
Developed in conjunction with the Flying Object creative studio, the exhibition saw
Tate Britain work with audio specialists, scent experts, lighting designers, interactive- theatre specialists and experts in the field of informatics, which identifies human interaction with computer technology.
Scent sensation
Similarly, Leighton House Museum in west London broke new ground by working with perfumer Jo Malone for its exhibition A Victorian Obsession: The Pérez Simón Collection, which closed in April.
Malone created a new fragrance, London Red Roses, inspired by Lawrence Alma- Tadema’s 1888 painting, The Roses of Heliogabalus, which depicts the Roman emperor Heliogabalus suffocating his guests with rose petals.
Visitors viewed the painting while intoxicated by the scent of rose, mimicking what must have been the olfactory sensation of the victims in the artwork. Multi-sensory exhibitions are also being mounted by smaller museums outside the capital.
The Banbury Museum in Oxfordshire had a sensory zone created by artist Jan Niedojadlo. Running over the summer, the interactive show comprised different scented pods, based on various themes, exhibited using unusual lighting techniques and audio.
A two-metre-high sculpture entitled Hands of God saw visitors climb inside a pair of giant clasped hands made from tactile materials and scented with Tiger Balm.
“People enjoy the sense of going into another world and being enclosed,” says Dale Johnston, the events and exhibitions manager at Banbury Museum. “It is relaxing but stimulating. It encourages people to interact with one another socially and have conversations about the work.”
Managing the flow of visitors to prevent overcrowding is an important part of running multi-sensory exhibitions. Banbury tackled this by charging £1 per ticket and restricting visits to an hour.
Although Tate Sensorium was free, sessions had to be booked in advance and were restricted to just 15 minutes. Museums and galleries hosting this kind of interactive exhibition also need to ensure enough staff are available to guide visitors.
Multi-sensory shows allow venues to work with diverse specialists and attract new audiences. But they can also monitor how visitors respond to the works, thereby breaking new ground in optimising the visitor experience.
Tony Guillan, the visual arts and multimedia producer at Tate, on Tate Sensorium: “Abstract art is, by nature, interpretative, requiring a more sensual appreciation of art. By involving more than one sense, the show helped to remind visitors that their instinctive and emotive responses to an artwork are just as
important as their visual perception of it.
People tend to find abstract art esoteric or difficult to respond to, so with this show we were trying to facilitate a deeper engagement by involving more than just one of our six senses.”
Tate Sensorium, on show at Tate Britain at the end of summer, demonstrated that the interpretation of art doesn’t have to be entirely visual.
The exhibition, which won the IK Prize 2015, created a multi- sensory experience around four paintings by 20th-century artists: Francis Bacon, David Bomberg, Richard Hamilton and John Latham.
Visitors viewed Latham’s painting Full Stop (1961) with one hand in a device that used ultrasound technology to create tactile sensations. A soundtrack to reflect the painting’s dual nature, composed by an audio specialist, enhanced the experience.
Meanwhile, viewing Bacon’s A Figure in a Landscape (1945) came hand in hand
with evocative mechanical and industrial noise, a mouthful of coal-infused chocolate, with the taste and texture of charcoal, and the aromatic stimulation of smells such as soil, grass and animals pumped into the air.
Sweaty business
Visitors to Tate Sensorium were kitted out with biometric measurement devices to record electrodermal activity, or perspiration, which indicates levels of excitement.
The data was used to create personalised tours around the rest of the gallery’s collection displays, pointing individuals in the direction of paintings that are likely to resonate with them. This idea illustrates how cultural institutions can employ new technologies to assess the impact of artwork on audiences.
“Museums are always looking to diversify and expand their audiences by looking at how different demographics approach art,” says Tony Guillan, the visual arts and multimedia producer at Tate.
“The tech generation are used to living in immersive worlds fed by technology, so they find a multi-sensory approach a better mode of interpretation than text on a wall.”
Developed in conjunction with the Flying Object creative studio, the exhibition saw
Tate Britain work with audio specialists, scent experts, lighting designers, interactive- theatre specialists and experts in the field of informatics, which identifies human interaction with computer technology.
Scent sensation
Similarly, Leighton House Museum in west London broke new ground by working with perfumer Jo Malone for its exhibition A Victorian Obsession: The Pérez Simón Collection, which closed in April.
Malone created a new fragrance, London Red Roses, inspired by Lawrence Alma- Tadema’s 1888 painting, The Roses of Heliogabalus, which depicts the Roman emperor Heliogabalus suffocating his guests with rose petals.
Visitors viewed the painting while intoxicated by the scent of rose, mimicking what must have been the olfactory sensation of the victims in the artwork. Multi-sensory exhibitions are also being mounted by smaller museums outside the capital.
The Banbury Museum in Oxfordshire had a sensory zone created by artist Jan Niedojadlo. Running over the summer, the interactive show comprised different scented pods, based on various themes, exhibited using unusual lighting techniques and audio.
A two-metre-high sculpture entitled Hands of God saw visitors climb inside a pair of giant clasped hands made from tactile materials and scented with Tiger Balm.
“People enjoy the sense of going into another world and being enclosed,” says Dale Johnston, the events and exhibitions manager at Banbury Museum. “It is relaxing but stimulating. It encourages people to interact with one another socially and have conversations about the work.”
Managing the flow of visitors to prevent overcrowding is an important part of running multi-sensory exhibitions. Banbury tackled this by charging £1 per ticket and restricting visits to an hour.
Although Tate Sensorium was free, sessions had to be booked in advance and were restricted to just 15 minutes. Museums and galleries hosting this kind of interactive exhibition also need to ensure enough staff are available to guide visitors.
Multi-sensory shows allow venues to work with diverse specialists and attract new audiences. But they can also monitor how visitors respond to the works, thereby breaking new ground in optimising the visitor experience.
Why multi-sensory art exhibitions are useful
Tony Guillan, the visual arts and multimedia producer at Tate, on Tate Sensorium: “Abstract art is, by nature, interpretative, requiring a more sensual appreciation of art. By involving more than one sense, the show helped to remind visitors that their instinctive and emotive responses to an artwork are just as
important as their visual perception of it.
People tend to find abstract art esoteric or difficult to respond to, so with this show we were trying to facilitate a deeper engagement by involving more than just one of our six senses.”
