Conference – Royal Institute of British Architects, London, 7th May 2008

Memory and Touch: an exploration of textural communication

“touch cannot be in opposition to itself, can never be perceived as surface or source, but an acknowledgement that actual is mutual – a conjoining of two.”

Masayo Ave: Haptic touch panel – The Sound of Materials

As babies we learn to define and refine our relationship with our surroundings through licking, touching, smelling, hearing and seeing, and throughout our lives we continue to experience the world through our senses. Yet once we have acquired verbal language, we rarely acknowledge how much we understand through our textural awareness; there is an intimacy, a privacy surrounding our sensory experiences, their very bodily nature a potential source of embarrassment. The more we attempt to control our environment and our interaction with the physical world through intellectual scrutiny of objects, and deny the fundamental importance of textural experience, the more we risk loosing that level of communication achieved through attention to the senses, for “to touch is also to be touched”*. And as such always creates a dialogue, a communication both before and beyond text.

It is possible to touch colour in a sense, because very bright red will work on expectation and somehow the colour will bring some warmth. Some people see cloth through the sound it makes, the sound when people are walking and the cloth moves against the skin; expensive textiles especially make a more beautiful sound, and that there is very often an erotic connection to the sound of certain textiles. Conference presentations will draw on a wide variety of interpretations, disciplines and experiences, exploring the symbolic, cultural, social and technical aspects of textural communication. Keynote speaker will be the highly influential Japanese designer Kenya Hara, whose exhibition Haptic – awakening the senses, will Open at the RIBA Gallery on 7th May.

Booking form for Conference click here+

Venue: Royal Institute of British Architects, Portland Place, London
Date: May 7th 2008                           

Chair:  Vicky Richardson, Editor Blueprint, Media Partner for Conference and Exhibition

Confirmed Speakers
Kenya Hara, Chief Executive Nippon Design, Chief Designer MUJI, curator of Haptic – awakening of the senses
Professor Masayo Ave, Estonia Academy of Art, Founder of the Centre for Haptic Interface Design, Berlin University of Art, creator of the Haptic dictionary
Robert Zimmer and Professor Janis Jefferies, Goldsmiths Digital Studios, Goldsmiths, University of London
Kate Baker, Belinda Mitchell, School of Architecture and Interior Design University of Portsmouth
June Hill, Curator, writer
Dr Mark Paterson, School of Geography, Archaeology and Earth Resources, University of Exeter, Author: The Senses of Touch: Haptics, Affects and Technologies
Short presentations
Mary Schoeser, Senior Research Fellow, University of the Arts London, curator, writer
Fiona Jane Candy, Senior Lecturer, Department of Design University of Central Lancashire,
Trish Bould and Kathy Oldridge, University of Southampton
Dr Frances Geesin, Reader in Textiles and Materials, University of the Arts London
Lesley Sutton, Artist, project leader Stories of Cloth

Media Partner for Conference and Exhibition

*Chadwick, Helen ‘Lumina Delights’ in ‘Enfleshings’ p69 pub Aperture Foundation 1989. Rodaway Paul (1994). Sensuous Geographies: Body, Sense and Place. p41 London. Routledge