Feelers
Each panel of Wang & Söderström’s screen divider represents the five senses (image: Carl Ander).
In design duo Wang & Söderström’s new exhibition Sharp Feelers - Soft Antennas at Gothenburg’s Röhsska museum, a screen divider represents the human senses. Looking at each panel evokes a cacophony of sensation: augmented reality (AR) animations of bubbles swarm around a tongue accompanied by popping sounds, and caterpillar-like tentacles click as they scuttle over renditions of hands, the noises combining to provoke a tingling, euphoric sensation as they trigger the Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR).
“The senses work in synergy all the time, they kind of play together,” says Tim Söderström, explaining that when we see a picture of something furry, our memories of touching similar textures inform our visual perception. Söderström and his partner Anny Wang are interested in the ways in which technology erodes our sensory perceptions, giving the example of losing fine motor skills due to touchscreen use. “Right now, the digital is dominated by visual and audio,” Söderström says. “So this archive of other senses is going to be smaller for future generations, which also means that the visual itself will be less rich.” The exhibition reflects on the potential for technology to be designed to enrich sensory perception, and the pair employ their backgrounds in architecture and spatial design to activate visitors’ senses as much as possible. There are soundscapes of AI bots attempting to describe eating a meal; 3D-printed cushions with ridged surfaces; and scents ranging from essential oils to the plasticky smell of 90s TVs.
Wang & Söderström use rounded shapes and silky textures to highlight the potential for technology to be sensuous and soft (image: Carl Ander).
The exhibition neighbours galleries dedicated to 18th-century design and craft, and the pair have created pieces responding to items in these permanent collections. “What's interesting is to imagine how an 18th-century person perceived the world,” Wang says, explaining how the screen’s panels feature objects that were once carriers of coffee, sugar, spices and tobacco – goods that were globally available for the first time due to colonial trade routes. “They would have used senses and tactile features to understand materials and designs perhaps much more than we do.” The piece’s form reflects on the changing function of screens throughout design history, and how a form that was once used to protect against unwanted gazes is now used to connect with the virtual sphere. Meanwhile, the AR animation emphasises the omnipresence of technology in our lives. “The screen and the Internet as we know it today will be obsolete in probably 10 years, and the interfaces we know will be much more integrated into our spaces,” Söderström says. “It’s interesting to see how our brains will adapt.”
Their tapestry is inspired by Röhsska’s baroque chamber, and depicts an imaginary landscape filled with the sensory organs of various species (image: Carl Ander).
The pair lean into this idea of adaptation with the screen’s sixth panel, which represents an additional sense that could be developed through our relationships with technology. “It’s left blank so that people can imagine things we don’t have words for yet,” Wang says, giving examples of sensory phenomena that have become more widespread after more people discovered names for them, such as ASMR or the taste of umami, a savoury or meaty flavour in food. The pair are also interested in the sensory perceptions of other species, creating a tapestry inspired by Röhsska’s Baroque Chamber, which depicts an imaginary landscape filled with the sensory organs of various species, including tentacles and sensors alongside satellite and radio antennas. “We learn more about ourselves by looking at other species,” Wang says. “What we hope is to open up this empathy channel, to see that there are more species than us humans here.”
The pair created 3D printed sculptures inspired by extremophiles, tiny organisms that can live in the most extreme environments on Earth (image: Carl Ander).
The exhibition articulates the pair’s ambivalence about the future of technology through digital avatars that follow visitors around the room like helpers or stalkers, and eerie, alien sculptures that are pudgy and cute like baby feet. “We need to not be afraid of technology, because it isn’t super complicated, and there are different communities that can open it up,” Söderström says, explaining how their work aims to invite people to engage with technology and help to shape it. “We think it’s important to play around with it, not only for efficiency, but to make it relatable and open up space for imagination.” Their work highlights the potential for technology to be sensuous and soft, with 3D-printed sculptures the texture of silk and and animations that are childlike and gelatinous. “If we talk about technology as something more soft and connected to our sensorial world, perhaps we’ll code some empathy into it,” Wang says, “because our senses are what allow us to feel empathy.”
Words Helen Gonzalez Brown