As discussed in the Tactual Explorations chapter, the Bronze Bust of Sophocles in the British museum is very inaccessible. Apart from being in a glass case, the exhibit doesn’t have a place in the Museum’s audio description pack; in addition to this the room is accessed by a set of stairs, or a lift that is hard to find and not attended regularly. At times the room itself is closed due to staff shortage. All of these variables made this object perfect for using as the selected object for the Tactual Explorations project in the first place. Although the Tactual Explorations project is an analysis of the bust in general term, it was still necessary to visit it in its usual location to interact with it.
This exercise consisted of four visits with participants to the museum, and two without, entirely for the purposes of this research, on different days. The four participants for this research were Margo, June, Peter, and Amelia. They all agreed for their real first names to be used in the analysis of the work as well as the video footage to be used for this research. On each visit, I was assisted by a cameraman and a second person to help in the case of a problem55 during interviews or at the time of meeting up.
On all visits, before the arrival of the participant, we requested access to the lift and a wheelchair to be provided for our cameraman. Because of our access requirements, it took between 15 to 25 minutes56 to get to the room on each visit. Once the cameraman was ready inside the room, I went to the main gate to greet the participant as previously arranged. We were not allowed to use tripods inside the museum, microphones or even lights. However we had the advantage of using the camera from the wheelchair level.
Therefore other visitors were not distracted by our actions. The same reasons allowed me to unobtrusively film and observe these other visitors within the room especially when our participants were not in the room yet or when they were about to enter.
The visits to the museum also carried an experiential attempt to experience physical touch, and even the sense of touch on the museum itself, from different dimensions.
The development of the touch scenario started long before coming in front of the Bronze Bust of Sophocles. There were many variables involved. My and the participants touch were observed.
One common element seen in two of the visits was the reaction of the guide-dogs of my participants to the plinth that held the bust. No matter how many times we walked around or towards it, both of the guide dogs (separate visits) were trying to get their owners away from the plinth as it was an obstacle for them and because there was not any difference on the floor surface, my participants also had no choice but ignore the object. Other two participants did not have guide dogs; however they too saw the plinth as an obstacle with the guide of their canes. Amelia said she would treat most things as an obstacle unless she was sure that it was safe. Although she can see some images and differentiate light she found this exhibit particularly difficult as the glass
55 For example, this second person helped arranging refreshments for the participants, as well as helping carry equipment and driving Margo when she needed a lift to the museum.
56 This is after parking the car at the Disabled parking spot, and includes the time to wait for a wheelchair which was booked in advance; and the waiting time for someone to let us to the lift which is not open to all.
case was hit by a spotlight and it was creating uncomfortable flares for her and as a result she could not see anything.
Earlier, during her visit, I asked June what would be the first thing she would like to know about this object. She replied “Well, I’d like to know that it was here first to start with”. Not only did she expect the exhibit to have some form of audio description, she said without any guidance she would have assumed this was just a glass case.
The common reaction was that they would not be aware of the existence of this exhibit in anyway unless I stopped them and made it apparent. When I asked June what sort of information she would like to have access to if she was visiting the place free from this research, she responded “Well, I’d like to know that it was here first to start with. So I’d want to be able to find the case myself…” and added that she would like to have an audio description of the object. The British Museum currently does not include this object in their audio tour. Therefore the access to the exhibit becomes even more exclusive. Margo’s response to the same discussion was “I understand in some ways why they ought to put them in glass cases; it will just be touched and damaged.
However, it needs supervision.” Peter’s comment on the same issue was “if an object like this was surrounded by maybe a rubber mat or something, [like that] on the floor and you would notice the different texture to stand on, and realise that there is something there”.
With all the participants we touched the glass case on different points and rubbed our fingers and placed our palms against the glass to gather a better sense of the object’s existence through this case. To me it felt and looked like we were trying to get inside the case. The gallery attendant at each visit was a different person and each time we ended up drawing attention to ourselves and fight a corner for touching the glass.
Because of the participants’ visual impairment this was allowed in the end, but our endless attention to the object started to worry the attendant at times. As a result the barrier around the object to me became more and more apparent. And the participants, despite getting closer to the object and enjoying the information-gathering, started to get anxious about being around an object that was this limited for everyone. Some made political comments about the imperialist approach of museums of this kind and raised disagreement for holding the objects per se let alone inside glass cases. I tried to give them as much spatial information as possible also, so I could observe how the reference points were established.
While describing the object to June, as I did with everyone, I mentioned its hollowness and how it was possible to see through the eyes, and with the right angle found some of this was also visible under the neck where the bust was possibly broken off a fuller sculpture before being found as a head. This description interested June more than any other aspect of the bust and we conversed about it more. During this conversation a metaphor of a full-head mask came about in order to describe the hollowness and the thickness of the bust. For me, even as a sighted person, it was difficult to convey this vision that I was seeing on the bust and I realised June was probably imagining a mask that is different to the one I am describing. If she was describing a mask for me I could only resort to my imagination too. The unreliability of the verbal description started to reveal itself here. This proved to me once more that a tactile representation would bring us closer in experiencing this feature. I also reflected on the Tactual Explorations
project and confirmed the importance of each artwork that was set to represent a feature of this selected object. In the case of hollowness for example, John Swindell’s
‘Inverted Head’ work represented the inner vision of the bust, the one we would not be able to feel otherwise. And in addition to this, the Haptic Simulation also allowed visitors to study the inside of the object, by providing a hollow model (i.e. the cursor of the stylus could go inside the model from the eyes, mouth and ears to feel the contour information and the negative of the bumps on the inside surface, and come out from one of those holes again). To be able to make such mental comparisons in front of the object and revisit the Tactual Explorations project this way provided valuable
conclusions to the study.
At these visits I also wanted to know if the room changed for the participants in anyway, or whether the existence of the object started to mean something more, now that we talked about it and walked around it as well as mimicked the act of touching it.
Although I got positive responses about each of them becoming more familiar with the room, I could not make relevant conclusions other than that the sound levels and the lighting in the room created further obstacles for my participants. Although we gained sense of presence of the object relying on the placement of the plinth and glass case on top of it, the room itself would need more research exercises to have other conclusions.
For the purposes of this research I did not see any relevance therefore limited my exercises to the close surroundings and how the room conditions affected accessibility.