ASMR is the scientific term that describes a series of physical sensations that range from euphoria to calmness –often expressed as a bodily tingling. The term was initially coined by Jennifer Allen in 2010 and aimed to describe this sensational but rather weird human reaction to specific sound and movement triggers.
Science apart, ASMR has now become an internet sensation in the form of a collective movement of creatives known as ASMRtists who entertain their devoted audience by triggering them through touch and sound. Content creators and fans together form one of the largest communities online who experience Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response in a self-described “oddly satisfying way”. It was a matter of time before this cultural phenomenon get art institutions and artists interested. Enter WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD, the first museum exhibition dedicated to ASMR and the impact of this emerging field of creativity-meeting-hype.
Weird Sensation Feels Good: The World of ASMR is an exhibition at the Design Museum, London, England, co-curated with ArkDes, the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design. The exhibition uses immersive, interactive, and video installations to showcase ASMR both as a creative means and as a modern cultural phenomenonThis is the first exhibition of its kind to lift the world of ASMR out from your screen and into physical space. Viewers are challenged to step into an acoustically tuned environment as well as understand how people are using new and existing tools and materials to navigate our phygital complex world.
The exhibition also gives voice to the emerging field of ASMR creativity through the artistic work of designers and content creators who try to trigger it in their viewers. “ASMR subverts it by softness, slowness, and sweetness” comments chief curator James Taylor-Foster while talking about ASMR and its intersection with design. “The internet is a territory for design” and ASMR “is a field of design that mediates between mind and body, and emphasizes how mind and body are not disconnected. We are one sensory being and ASMR helps us understand that in a context” he also notes on an interview with STIR magazine.
Today’s ASMR world imitates touch, the human’s primal way of reading the environment to create softness in a way of a “digital caress”, a way of inducing deep relaxation in the viewer. As the exhibition proves, this type of human communication is one of the most intriguing ways to explore care and intimacy on the web. ASMR is a human-to-human bridge, a light of human softness in a radically digitized world.
Author: Ilia-Sybil Sdralli