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Intimate Technologies:
Touching Textiles to improve the quality of human-computer Haptic
(touch and feel) interaction in Material Culture is an on going research project involving engineers,
computer scientists and practitioners from the Touch Lab at MIT
and Goldsmiths Digital Studios. It is the goal of our research
project to produce and/or deploy digital technologies that will
enable us to bring back multi-sensory experiences to museums and
galleries without risking the material artefacts themselves. The
general idea is to produce digital models of various aspects of
the objects (sight, sound, smell, taste and feel) allowing visitors
experiences of digital simulacra of the objects. This will lead
to a future in which users, researchers, practitioners and curators
will be able to access, not just the two-dimensional look of an
object, but also its feel. This will transform our experiences
(both physical and web-based) and enhance relations with museum
artefacts and between each other mobilising touch without touching
but being in touch with one another.
Our presentation will be fully
illustrated. Our paper will concentrate on touch as well as our
main research. There have been a few experimental exhibitions of
touch in museums, including an exhibition that allowed visitors
to feel but we are looking towards a more radical and integrated
use of digital technologies that will allow more intense interactions
with material artefacts than is presently possible.
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