Consulting / TacTiles
People of all ages enjoy the opportunity to experience and contemplate works of art in the museum context. ‘TacTiles’ are a new approach to presenting visual works of art to museum visitors with impaired vision.
The ‘TacTiles’ are made of brightly colored cast plastic and are 8.5 inches x 11 inches and 1/4 inch thick. For the Art Institute of Chicago, the compositions and textures of 5 works from the permanent collection are intricately reproduced on the tiles, making these works available through the fingertips, to visually impaired visitors.
Each TacTile fits into a pocket and these pockets snap onto a shoulder strap for transportation into the museum. The pocket contains additional components that provide for different modes of understanding essential information about the artwork on display including a large-type print description and a Braille description of the artwork. The Storage/Carrying system is designed to be expandable and new ‘TacTile’s can be easily added. Each pocket has a large image tab to help users and their guides distinguish which artwork is represented on the ‘TacTile’.
To achieve a tactile graphic where the significant compositional elements and visual qualities of each artwork were easily visible to the touch we conducted several rounds of user-research and testing. Although less than 10% of the visually impaired population read Braille we followed the advice of our user groups and included a Braille version of the standard museum label information on each tactile. Users felt that including this information provided the Braille reader with autonomy when using the tiles.
The Art Institute of Chicago unveiled 10 fully functioning ‘TacTile’ Kits for public use in April 2006. The following works are available as TacTiles at AIC:
- Pierre Auguste Renoir, French, 1841-1919, Two Sisters (On the Terrace), 1881, oil on canvas, 100.5 x 81 cm, Mr. And Mrs. Lewis Larned Coburn Memorial Collection, 1933.455.
- Tosa Mitsuoki, Japanese, 1617-1691, Flowering Cherry with Poem Slips, c.1675, One of a pair of six-fold screens; Ink, color, gold leaf, and gold powder on silk, 131.0 x 256.0 cm, Kate S. Buckingham Collection, 1977.156.
- Joan Miró, Spanish, 1893-1983, Personages with Star, 1933, oil on canvas, 198.1 x 246.4 cm, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Maurice E. Culberg, 1952.512.
- Adriaen van der Spelt and Frans van Mieris, Dutch, 1630-1673 & 1635-1681, Trompe-l'Oeil Still Life with a Flower Garland and a Curtain, 1658, Oil on panel, 46.5 x 63.9 cm, Wirt D. Walker Fund, 1949.585.
- Mexico, Tenochtilan, Aztec Culture, Coronation Stone of Moctezuma II ("Stone of the Five Suns"), c.1503, Basalt, 55.9 x 66 x 22.9 cm, Major Acquisitions Fund, 1990.21 top view.
The kits are available for public use through pre-arranged Escorts for the Blind tours organized by the AIC’s Department of Museum Education. This groundbreaking project was made possible by a generous grant from Beatrice C Mayer (Buddy) and the Nathan Cummings Foundation.
TacTile Panels
- Materials:
- Cast Plastic
- Dimensions:
- 11”L X 8.5”W/dd>
- Availability:
- By Commission
TacTile Storage Pockets / Bag
- Materials:
- Stain Resistant Nylon + Cotton + Delrin + Digital Print
- Availability:
- By Commission
