Feeling Backwards: An Archive of Touch by Iz Paehr
In the framework of S+T+ARTS EC(H)O – Challenge 9: Cultural Heritage Through New Technologies
The project
Iz Paehr is developing Feeling Backwards: An Archive of Touch, a project dedicated to building tactile virtual experiences and addressing the exclusion of disabled individuals from visually-dominant VR technology. The work involves critiquing commercial VR platforms and designing and prototyping custom controllers that utilize tactile stimuli (vibration, pressure, temperature) to provide critical access to archival materials from the Salzburg Festival Archive. A key part of the research involves grounding the work in disabled knowledges and scientific research on touch. A major achievement is the development of a workbook/workshop script on how to write tactile descriptions to create new language around complex tactile experiences and aid future archival practices.
Hosted by: Salzburg Festival & Ars Electronica
The artist
Iz Paehr‘s practice is rooted in the poetics and politics of access, queer feminist worldbuilding, and anti-ableist hacking, intending to facilitate transformations by intervening into hegemonic sociotechnical systems. Based in Berlin, they studied Visual Communications and deepened their research in VR and visuality. Their project, Feeling Backwards: An Archive of Touch, seeks to refigure the role of haptics in creating inclusive VR experiences of cultural heritage by investigating moments of touch found within the Salzburg Festival Archive. Grounding the work in disabled knowledges, the project aims to “crip” the archive’s reception by building haptic sculptures that serve as custom controllers, allowing virtual touch points to be experienced and navigated by a variety of bodies and minds. This innovative approach experiments with expanding the narrow, visually-dominant definitions of VR and demonstrating how prioritizing access transforms technology design processes.
