Interactive sensory objects developed for and by people with learning disabilities

“动手展览带来了一个空间的生活，使一个更好的理解和意义的文化遗产。这对于有学习障碍的人来说尤其重要”（Lord Rix，2005年，Mencap主席）。处理艺术品的经验，正如里克斯勋爵所说，极大地增强了我们对文化遗产的理解，对于那些有学习障碍的人来说尤其如此。对于这一社会群体来说，近几年来，亲身体验文物已成为促进对文化遗产的理解的一种重要方法，正如获取遗产论坛所强调的那样，许多博物馆和遗产遗址都建立了“处理收藏品”。但也有许多缺点。有学习障碍的人可以使用的材料通常是由馆长选择的，而不是由用户群体决定的;许多材料被馆长认为太脆弱，用户群体无法处理;在一些遗产地，由于遗址环境的复杂性，对物品的访问受到限制，它们的性质有时仅限于书籍中的图片。该项目旨在从三个方面解决这一问题。一是创造一系列互动的、多感官的物品，复制或回应我们国家收藏中其他具有文化意义的物品的艺术品。这些对现有艺术品的艺术反应可能包括例如一个复制品，其中嵌入了一个屏幕或扬声器，可以对光线或运动做出反应，触发口述历史的记录，或者一系列来自档案馆的照片出现在屏幕上，或者可能是物理体验的再现-例如在耕地时感受到的振动，甚至是湿稻草的气味。第二个--特别是创新的--是雇用有学习障碍的人作为参与研究者来制作和设计这些艺术品，以便它们满足广泛而有针对性的需求。第三是探索开发互动感官物品的技术，通过参与者工作坊侧重于迭代设计，以期制定最佳实践指南，为未来的发展提供基础，并为博物馆和遗产地提供持久的资源，以支持他们与用户群体互动。该项目将包括一系列基本上具有实验性和探索性的工作坊。在每个项目中，学术研究团队将与有学习障碍的参与研究人员一起开发互动艺术品，并记录他们的成功和失败。学术研究人员将利用他们作为艺术家和技术专家的专业知识来指导探索，使其实现其创造性和互动性。特别是，研究人员将探索新开发的易于使用的电子产品的潜力，使用户组成员的经验更加重要和有意义。在规划该项目时，调查人员确保了三个不同遗产收藏的合作，一个国家-大英博物馆-和两个区域-国家信托大厦，斯皮克大厅，在利物浦和英国乡村生活博物馆（MERL）在阅读大学。该项目是及时的“遗产部门正在意识到以创造性的方式使用技术的好处，并使可用性尽可能简单和直观，”（石楠J. L。史密斯，全民访问负责人，国家信托，2009年）。

"Hands-on exhibits bring a space to life, giving a greater understanding and meaning to cultural heritage. This is especially important for people with learning disabilities" (Lord Rix, 2005, President of Mencap). The experience of handling artworks, as Lord Rix makes clear, enormously enhances our understanding of cultural heritage, and this is especially so for those with learning disabilities. For this social group, hands-on experience of cultural objects has in recent years become an important approach in promoting an understanding of cultural heritage as highlighted by the Access to Heritage Forum, and in response many museums and heritage sites have established 'handling collections'. Yet there are many drawbacks. The materials made accessible to those with learning disabilities as substitutes for the originals are usually chosen by the curators rather than determined by the user-group; many materials are deemed by curators too delicate to be handled by the user group; and in some heritage sites access to the objects is limited because of the complex nature of the site's environment, and their character is sometimes limited to pictures in books. This project aims to address this problem in three ways. One is to create a series of interactive, multisensory objects that replicate or respond to artworks of other objects of cultural significance in our national collections. These artistic responses to existing artworks might include for example a replica that has a screen or speaker embedded in it which responds to light or movement, triggering a recording of an oral history, or a series of photos from the archives to appear on the screen, or perhaps a recreation of a physical experience - such as the vibration felt when ploughing a field or even the smell of wet straw. A second - especially innovative - is to employ people with learning disabilities as participant researchers in generating and designing these art objects, so that they cater for a wide and yet targeted range of needs. The third is to explore techniques for developing interactive sensory objects, focussing on iterative design through participant workshops, with a view to developing best practice guidelines which can provide a basis for future development and provide a lasting resource for museums and heritage sites to support them in engaging with user groups.The project will consist of a series of workshops that are fundamentally experimental and exploratory in character. In each, the academic research team will work together with the participant researchers with learning disabilities to develop interactive art objects, and in so doing record their successes and failures. The academic researchers will use their own expertise as artists and technologists in guiding the exploration to allow it to achieve its creative and interactive potential. In particular the investigators will explore the potential of newly developed easy-to-use electronics in making the experience of members of the user-group more vital and meaningful. In planning the project the investigators have secured the collaboration of three different heritage collections, one national - The British Museum - and two regional - the National Trust House, Speke Hall, in Liverpool and the Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) at the University of Reading.The project is timely as "the heritage sector is waking up to the benefits of using technology in creative ways and making the usability as easy and intuitive as possible," (Heather J. L. Smith, Head of Access for All, The National Trust, 2009).