The Guardian (UK)
Thursday, June 16, 2005

V&A aims to get in touch with visitors 

By Caroline Roux

In a world where judging by appearance is the norm, a design exhibition
which opened yesterday at the Victoria and Albert Museum may cause at
least confusion if not a stir. 

Design shows tend to emphasise the look of a thing, but this one, called
Touch Me, is about content over style and, as the name suggests, invites
visitors to cop a feel of at least 75% of the exhibits rather than admire
them from afar . 

"I did consider choosing objects completely blindly, and just selecting
them for what they did rather than how they looked," says guest curator
Hugh Aldersey-Williams. "But I think I upset the Victoria and Albert a bit
when I suggested we might not be showing beautiful things." 

As luck would have it the show, which is an exploration of interactive
design and runs until August 29, is rather attractive. But in the context
of the V&A, the country's treasure house of decorative arts, some
re-education might be in order. 

"This show is absolutely not about fetishisation of perfect objects," says
co-curator Lauren Parker, head of Contemporary Programmes at the museum. 

The exhibition aims to heighten our understanding of the many ways in
which the designed world appeals to us. "When you stroke a piece of
paper," says Aldersey Williams, "what you're actually responding to is the
sound it makes, but we think it's about touch." 

The show also wants to promote the idea of a more intuitive form of
technology, where technology is invisible and objects are playful. A table
tennis table is spontaneously covered in ripples every time the ball hits
it. Touching a plant makes a visual jungle grow all over an adjacent
screen. 

Elsewhere in the museum, objects bear the scars of human use - teeth marks
on christening spoons, cane-handles worn away - here they will take the
shape of visitor interaction. A row of tiles behind a kitchen sink carry a
quote from the poet Rupert Brooke in braille. It says: "In every touch
more intimate meanings hide." If that's the case, then this should be a
very revealing show.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1508477,00.html

Lisa Yayla
Huseby Kompetansesenter 
Oslo Norway
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