Students from Westminster Primary Academy in Bradford were the first group to try our brand new family exhibition, Supersenses, ahead of its opening on 15 July 2017.
The India class tested lots of different interactive experiences across two galleries. They explored how everyone senses the world differently, and learned about some of the science and technology that has been developed to enhance our powers of perception.
Supersenses proved very popular—comments included that they’d had ‘the best day out’ and ‘this is so fun’!
The Sensory Soundpits, in which playing with sand triggers sound and visuals, were among the group’s favourite exhibits. Developed by Manchester-based artist Di Mainstone and various collaborators, the work was inspired by the condition synaesthesia—a phenomenon experienced when a sense in one part of the body stimulates another, different, sense at the same time, for example ‘hearing colour’.
Creative studio Marshmallow Laser Feast’s In the Eyes of the Animal is presented on a giant curved screen, which displays a spectacular adaptation of a VR animation. Viewers are taken on a visual journey through a forest, showing the world through the eyes of a dragonfly, a frog and an owl.
The ‘unheard’ sounds of Bradford are revealed in Journey Through the Mirror Pool. It’s an eight-minute composition using sounds captured above, around and below the Mirror Pool in City Park. It was recorded and produced by a team including world-renowned TV sound recordist Chris Watson, Manchester-based sound artists Noise Orchestra, Alan Dunn (artist and Senior Lecturer at Leeds Beckett University), and students from Leeds Beckett and the University of Bradford.
Visitors can’t help leaving their mark on Zane Berzina’s installation Touch Me. This colourful wall has been painted with different shades of thermochromic inks, which react to body heat.
In this colour matching experiment, students tried to make the two circles match using different colours of light—but does everyone see the same thing?
Explore Supersenses for yourself at the National Science and Media Museum—the exhibition will be open until 8 October 2017.
All photos by Jason Lock