Interactive sensory objects developed for and by people with learning disabilities

“亲身体验的展览赋予了空间生命，让人们对文化遗产有了更好的理解和意义。这对有学习障碍的人尤其重要”（Lord Rix, 2005， Mencap主席）。正如里克斯勋爵所说，处理艺术品的经历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。对于这个社会群体来说，近年来，亲身体验文物已成为促进对文化遗产理解的重要途径，正如遗产访问论坛所强调的那样，为此，许多博物馆和遗产地建立了“处理藏品”。然而，也有许多缺点。为有学习障碍的人提供替代原件的材料通常是由策展人选择的，而不是由用户群体决定的；许多材料被策展人认为过于敏感，用户群无法处理；在一些遗产地，由于遗址环境的复杂性，文物的接触受到限制，它们的特征有时仅限于书本上的图片。本项目旨在从三个方面解决这个问题。一是创造一系列互动的、多感官的物品，这些物品可以复制或回应我们国家收藏中具有文化意义的其他物品的艺术品。这些对现有艺术品的艺术反应可能包括，例如，一个嵌入了屏幕或扬声器的复制品，它对光线或运动做出反应，触发口述历史的记录，或一系列档案照片出现在屏幕上，或者可能是对物理体验的再创造——比如犁地时感受到的震动，甚至是湿稻草的气味。第二种特别创新的方法是雇用有学习障碍的人作为参与研究人员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。第三是探索开发交互式感官物品的技术，重点是通过参与者研讨会进行迭代设计，以期制定最佳实践指南，为未来的发展提供基础，并为博物馆和文物遗址提供持久的资源，以支持它们与用户群体进行接触。该项目将包括一系列的讲习班，基本上是实验性和探索性的。在每个项目中，学术研究团队将与参与的学习障碍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的潜力。研究人员将特别探讨新开发的易于使用的电子产品在使用户群体成员的体验更加重要和有意义方面的潜力。在规划这个项目的过程中，研究人员已经确保了三个不同的遗产收藏的合作，一个是国家的——大英博物馆，两个是地区的——国家信托之家，位于利物浦的斯佩克大厅和位于雷丁大学的英国乡村生活博物馆。该项目是及时的，因为“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，”（Heather J. L. Smith，全民访问负责人，国民信托，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).