Accessing material art through technologies of mediation and immediation

In this paper, we explore touch technologies and the kinds of engagements with art that they enable. We discuss implications of using these technologies, and technology more generally, to access art via electronic displays within museums and galleries and outside of museums over the Internet. Our discussion is put in the context of how museums, both now and in the past, have constructed experiences of objects. We trace a trajectory from museum environments in which all senses were active to contemporary ones, which are purely visual. We argue that emerging technologies can be used to reverse this movement.