Sensitive Shoes and Smart Second Skin at the V&A

Touch is our most neglected sense. We are always touching something and being touched in return, but we seldom think about it. Scientists know less about the workings of touch than about our other senses. Touch can produce delightful sensations or uncomfortable reactions. The right touch can make us feel secure, happy, loved. But social taboos and new technologies often seem to get in the way of human contact. Many of our ordinary interactions with the world make poor use of our sense of touch. Using a computer keyboard, flicking a light switch or pushing a door provide few tactile rewards.

However, designers are now creating novel objects that engage more playfully with the touch senses. Some explore unexpected materials combined with the other senses. Some reinvent how we use objects and technologies in order to produce more satisfying encounters. Some are even creating designs that aspire to promote richer human relationships.

Touch Me is a V&A and Wellcome Trust exhibition. Many of the objects in Touch Me had been lent by international designers. Two items of mine were exhibited in the bedroom section of the exhibition with the invitation to 'PRESS ME':

Sensitive Shoes

LED shoes designed were made by Steve McIntyre for Dr Jenny Tillotson 2003. The Sensitive Shoes stimulate the soles of your feet as you walk leaving a subtle glow from the under sole. Reflexology pressure points believed to signal your centre of emotional energy are activated. In this way the act of walking is healing.

Smart Second Skin Dress

Dress designed by Adeline Andre for Dr Jenny Tillotson 2003. This dress offers health and wellbeing through multi-sensory experiences. It allows you to control your emotional and physical wellbeing, trigger memories, or create personal sensory environments. Viewers were invited to stand on a selection of floor pads until you smell different pleasurable fragrances creating your own perosnal 'scent bubble'.

• http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites...
• http://www.smartsecondskin.com/main/sens...