The Exploratorim, located in San Francicsco, CA is a hands-on museum of science, art, and human perception. Today most cities have a science museum where you can interact and touch things, but the Exploratorium is unique because they have artists and scientists working side by side to create the exhibits. Play and fun are part of the mission, making it a dynamic and changing place since it opened in 1969.
The museum recently moved to a new space, three times larger than their last one, so some new and refurbished older exhibits have been introduced. One exhibit that on display again is the Tactile Dome, which is an interactive journey through total darkness where you can navigate the space using only your sense of touch and perception.
The Dome was created in 1971, and is a geodesic dome where visitors can enter into a totally dark path full of chambers. To navigate, visitors bump, slide and crawl through and past hundreds of materials and shapes. Only a few people are allowed in the exhibit at a time, and it has not been on display for a number of years.
The original press release, written in 1971 describes the exhibit experience:
“The purpose is to disorient the sensory world so that the only sense the visitor can rely on is touch. The sensation is so outside ordinary experience that a few people panic. An attendant in a control panel can reach every part of the ant-hill like maze almost instantly. Pre-opening visitors have compared the experience to being born again, turning yourself inside out head first, being swallowed by a whale, and inevitably, being enfolded in a giant womb.
Seemingly the tactile equivalent of a light show, the tour is actually a carefully planned and structured succession of shapes, temperatures and textures which require the full range of the touch sense to perceive.”
The Tactile dome was the first commissioned artist-in residence projects, and was created by Dr. August F. Coppola and Carl Day. The exhibit was designed by Coppola, (Yes, related to the Coppolas who work in film) who became interested in perceptual prejudice while directing interdisciplinary studies as head of California State College’s Honors Program. He believed that philosophy, physics and even psychology have always relied overwhelmingly on visual evidence to interpret the world.
He created the Tactile dome as a way to make others aware of what a complex and under used our sense of touch is. Coppola believed that people are actually prejudiced against the touch sense. “It’s development gets off to a bad start,” he was quoted in the original press release, “for as soon as we’ve stopped chewing our toes, the first commandment in life is given: “Don’t touch”.
You can read more on the Exploraorium’s website, or read an account of visiting the tactile dome last time it was on exhibit.
Image Source:
www.exploratorium.edu/visit/west-gallery/tactile-dome
itotd.com – Article Describing a First Hand Experinece In the Tactile Dome
Links:
www.exploratorium.edu/visit/west-gallery/tactile-dome
itotd.com – Article Describing a First Hand Experinece In the Tactile Dome