THEME Bodily boundaries
A bit more to touch You can do almost everything in our digitised world with the help of a machine. So why should you reach out and feel the material in front of you? What benefits can you reap from sticking your hands in dirt? Text Tiiu Pohjolainen Illustration Tuomas Kärkkäinen
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efore we even begin our interview, Department of Design Postdoctoral Researcher and lecturer, designer Bilge Merve Aktaș puts an enormous amount of sheep wool on the table. She spreads carded wool, felted wool and individual tufts across the table. A few loose hairs waft over the tabletop carried by the flowing air. Aktaș hands me a pile of untreated wool, telling me it came from Finnish sheep. The wool is still unwashed, dirty. ‘Touch it. How does it feel?’ This first thing I notice is the greasiness of the wool. There’s something familiar about it, my hands are covered by a sticky film, but I immediately find myself sniffing the tuft: its smell trans-
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ports me to the countryside, to a summer day surrounded by hay. My reaction is by no means unique. When the students attending the Human-Material Interaction course steered by Aktaș and Camilla Groth reflected on their encounters with various materials, almost all of them commented on scent. The smell of a natural material cannot be ignored. Just think about raw timber. Furthermore, almost every student compared the sensations the materials brought about to some everyday matter relevant to their own life. For one, working with clay brought to mind days on the beach, while wool reminded others of their grandparents. Materials give rise to memories of earlier life, prior learning, in all of us.
Touching all students In Aktaș’ and Groth’s course, participants have focused on working with clay and sheep wool. As the course is aimed at all Aalto University students, it has instructed business administration, chemistry and IT students alike to grab materials with their bare hands and experiment freely. The majority of participants have, due to their educational background, a positivist approach to research—end results must be achieved through utilisation of a strict scientific method. ‘In the beginning, the students usually want to know what we’re doing, why we’re doing it and towards what end result. They ask what tangible benefit will this course yield them,’ Aktaș says.