You can probably quite easily remember being in a gallery, or a museum, and seeing a ‘please do not touch’ sign. In the world of prestigious art exhibitions this is a well-signposted and unspoken cardinal rule of good manners; part of the atmosphere of awe and reverence, and partly acknowledging, as Dominique Cordellier from The Louvre has pointed out, that we as “humans are greasy animals.”

Whilst conservation of notable and delicate works of art is undeniably important, plenty of interactive art opportunities have side-stepped and challenged this both historically and recently. A few hundred years ago, the owners of Renaissance Curiosity Cabinets encouraged people to touch and to hold their objects in order to better appreciate them.

In the 1920s, viewers were invited to use the operating switch on Duchamp’s ‘Rotary Glass Plates’ machine. More recently, in 2003, the Louvre allowed visitors to touch its porphyry sculptures (the stone being able to withstand touch), grasping that, sometimes, viewers need to do more than just gaze.

Image: Camille Walala ‘Play’ via Wonderland Magazine

In 2017, Camille Walala memorably combined space and art in her colourful ‘Play’ installation at the Now Gallery in London. In Denmark, Doug Aitken’s ‘The Garden’ exhibition, at the ARoS Triennial, featured a bulletproof glass chamber housing a garden. He invited visitors inside not just to appreciate the vases and domestic objects, but to smash them.

“When we think of art, we usually think of the object and the viewer. I wanted to create an artwork that’s an activator – a piece with friction and energy.”

— Doug Aitken

Using art in space and blurring the lines between object and viewer in an emotional and physical connection is something that is also explored by the Color Factory, albeit not in a destructive manner.

Image: Kassia St. Clair installation at the Color Factory, colorfactory.com

The Color Factory creates workshops which encourage visitors to engage in creativity, curiosity, discovery and play in a series of participatory installations. What began as a month-long run in San Francisco in 2017 became an eight-month long, sold-out celebration. And this August and September (2018) has seen a team of creatives take over 20,000 square feet in New York City.

Image: Ballpit at the Colour Factory, NY via colorfactory.com

Clearly there is demand for art becoming not just interactive but something emotional and physical that people can connect to and feel involved with. Last week, during London Fashion Week, there was Anya Hindmarch’s experiential ‘Chubby Cloud’ installation at Banqueting House, which allowed people to view Rubens’ ceiling from a giant white beanbag.

Perhaps it is a response to the uncertainties in today’s political and global climate, perhaps an answer to a lack of spirituality, maybe a reflection of our dependence on digital engagement, or simply because there is fun to be had.

Image: Ruben’s ceiling at the Banqueting House as seen from ‘Chubby Cloud’ via anyahindmarch.com

People touch their phones an average of 2,617 times a day (about 1 million times a year) according to a recent article in the Washington Post. As a counterbalance to this, people are searching for nourishing haptic experiences to achieve an alternative and fulfilling sense of connection.

Whilst ‘do not touch’ might still be the dominant attitude in art, in the realms of architecture and interiors, design and decorative art the emphasis is more holistic. In a building, doorways lead you in, windows allow enticing glimpses, furniture invites you to use it, and furnishings wait to be appreciated by eyes and hands alike. Form and function connect with art. And the act of connecting in a tactile and physical way to the designed environment is integral to developing a person’s connection to the space.

Trend forecasters like Gudy Herder have noticed that, in interiors, suppliers of surfaces have responded to a rising need for tactility, offering more tactile surfaces on wallpaper, flooring and tiles. This could be a digitally printed multi-dimensional surface, ceramic tiles imitating wooden flooring or, on walls, lime wash paints, Microcrete or a sort of new age of tapestry with wall hangings and coverings aplenty. Haptic experiences are invited and encouraged.

In amongst this sit contemporary frescoes. Each abstract fresco we create is intended for the interiors milieu, but fuses design, fine art, decorative art, industrial art and architectural art. As ambitious and inspired as art solely intended for a gallery, but more robust, each site-specific fresco mural is there to look at from different angles, to appreciate and understand the colours and composition anew each day in ever-changing light; it is there to press a palm against the plaster and to run your fingertips over. It invites you to touch and to feel a sense of being immersed, uplifted and connected, without even realising it; it invites you to be moved.

Charles Snell, One Spectacle Grander (2017), 242 x 242cm, fresco panel.

Frescoes were relevant in this way hundreds of years ago (albeit more visually than in tactility), and our innovation on traditional fresco is one answer to an increasing need for architectural art that can transform and enrich the way we feel in our interior spaces. Creating walls that are beautiful but offer something more, something that becomes a part of us and connects us to our space.

Whilst this silent call for more haptic everyday experiences is evident, it is by no means universal. There will always be art and sculpture that we simply shouldn’t touch, or we don’t want to. When something looks as fragile as the work of the ceramicist Kaori Tatebayashi, who creates delicate installations that poetically speak of the ephemeral state of the natural world, you don’t want to touch for fear of breaking a flower, leaf or stem. You just want to stand and stare and gaze, and be filled brimful with awe. Sometimes just looking is appropriate and can be perfectly enough.

Image: Ceramics by Kaori Tatebayashi, photo by Yukia Sugiura via kaoriceramics.com

The Aster Muro Journal - Creative Inspiration and Updates

THOUGHTS / On Tactility