Interactions - November/December 2017

which they received the instructions for the final painting. They all stood in front of Francis Bacon’s Figure in a Landscape painting with a plinth in front of them that held four chocolate pralines. Visitors were instructed through headphones to pick up a piece of chocolate and eat it while experiencing the synchronized scent and sound stimuli.

LESSONS AND BENEFIT
FOR HCI RESEARCH

Tate Sensorium was open to the public between August 25 and October 4, 2015. Within this timeframe, 4,000 visitors experienced the selected art pieces in a new and innovative way. We collected feedback from 2,500 visitors through questionnaires and conducted 50 interviews to capture the subjective experiences of gallery visitors.

Around 87 percent of visitors rated the experience as very interesting (at least 4 on a 5-point Likert scale), and around 85 percent expressed an interest in returning to the art gallery for such multisensory experiences (see details on the findings in [ 6]).

Here, we reflect on our experience in the Tate Sensorium project. The degree of success of the venture depends on who you ask. From the point of view of the gallery, the results of Tate Sensorium exceeded initial expectations. The originally planned one-month exhibition period was extended for two additional weeks given the vast interest from the public. From the creative team’s point of view, it was also a success despite minor technical challenges in integrating the different sensory stimuli and coordinating a very diverse project team.

From an HCI research point of view, this project provided us with a unique opportunity to test and deploy an emerging technology in a real-world context. Additionally, it allowed us to explore novel tactile experiences, new tools, and

T

After the introduction, visitors removed their headphones and continued walking to the room marked 2 in Figure 2. There, they experienced Interior II by Richard Hamilton. Visitors were instructed (through the speakers in the room) to experience the painting as naturally as possible and to move around the space to explore the three different scents.

After that, staffers asked the visitors to separate into pairs (Pair 1 and Pair

2) and continue to the next painting (either 3a or 3b in Figure 2).

Pair 1 went to the room marked

3a in Figure 2 and viewed Full Stop by John Latham. Following the audio guidance, one of them placed her hand into the empty space in the plinth to experience the mid-air haptic feedback integrated and synchronized with the sound, while the other visitor listened only to the sound while viewing the painting. The complete synchronized sound-haptic experience lasted for one minute, and then visitors were instructed through the headphones to swap positions so that the second person could experience the complete sound-haptic integration.

Pair 2 went to the room marked

3b in Figure 2 and experienced David Bomberg’s In the Hold together with the synchronized sound and scent stimuli. Visitors were instructed to walk around and pick up one of the two

3D-printed scent objects to enjoy the combined sound-scent composition.

Then they changed positions and enjoyed each object and its distinct scent aligned with the specific auditory stimuli (as described above).

After Pair 1 finished experiencing room 3a and Pair 2 went through room 3b, they switched. Pair 1 moved on to room 3b and Pair 2 moved to room 3a, following the same procedure as described here for each of the two paintings.

All four visitors then moved to the final room, marked 4 in Figure 2. Each of them put on the headphones, from

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