Press
AIGA Eye on Design: L.A. Studio Content Object Explores “That Grey Area” Between Art and Design, 2017
Eye Magazine: String Theory, 2016
Experience: Culture, Cognition, and the Common Sense
Edited by Caroline A. Jones, David Mather, and Rebecca Uchill
Contributions by Tauba Auerbach, Bevil Conway, John Dewey, Olafur Eliasson, Michel Foucault, Adam Frank, Vittorio Gallese, Renée Green, Stefan Helmreich, Carsten Höller, Edmund Husserl, William James, Caroline A. Jones, Douglas Kahn, Brian Kane, Leah Kelly, Bruno Latour, Alvin Lucier, David Mather, Mara Mills, Alva Noë, Jacques Rancière, Michael Rossi, Tomás Saraceno, Natasha Schüll, Joan W.Scott, Tino Sehgal, Alma Steingart, Josh Tenenbaum, and Rebecca Uchill
Designed by Content Object, Kimberly Varella with Becca Lofchie
Cover concept by Olafur Eliasson in collaboration with Kimberly Varella
Casebound Hardcover with Heat Sensitive Cover, Pheromone-scented Endpapers, and Bookmarks: 352 pages
Publisher: MIT Center for Art, Science, & Technology and MIT Press, 2016
ISBN: 9780262035149
Dimensions: 7.125 × 9.875 in.
Printing: Permanent Printing Limited, Hong Kong
Experience offers a reading experience like no other. A heat-sensitive cover by Olafur Eliasson reveals words, colors, and a drawing when touched by human hands. Endpapers designed by Carsten Höller are printed in ink containing carefully calibrated quantities of the synthesized human pheromones estratetraenol and androstadienone, evoking the suggestibility of human desire. The margins and edges of the book are designed by Tauba Auerbach in complementary colors that create a dynamically shifting effect when the book is shifted or closed. When the book is opened, bookmarks cascade from the center, emerging from spider web prints by Tomás Saraceno. Experience produces experience while bringing the concept itself into relief as an object of contemplation. The sensory experience of the book as a physical object resonates with the intellectual experience of the book as a container of ideas.
Experience convenes a conversation with artists, musicians, philosophers, anthropologists, historians, and neuroscientists, each of whom explores aspects of sensorial and cultural realms of experience. The texts include new essays written for this volume and classic texts by such figures as William James and Michel Foucault. The first publication from MIT's Center for Art, Science, & Technology, Experience approaches its subject through multiple modes.
