TOUCHING, SENSING, BENDING: DESIGNING TACTILE ACCESS
While reading this course description it is highly recommended to turn on the song “U Can’t Touch This” by MC Hammer. Ask yourself: What if we COULD touch this?

Hi! My name is Iz Paehr, and I’m your guest professor at SI for the summer semester 2026. I’m a disabled designer, and I’m inviting you to get in touch with tactile access.

This semester, we will stick to what we can touch. Starting from the question of why (information) design is often understood as visual and which exclusions arise from this assumption, our group will learn about and experiment with tactile access. Let’s unpack this: Access is about who is addressed, excluded or reluctantly accepted into spaces and into shared meaning. Design is always about access; think of how a poster design (eg. for an event) without an image description only addresses sighted people. Our second word is tactile: Something designed to be perceived by touch. In a ‘Look, don’t touch!’-culture, touch is undervalued. Notice how in the previous example, I mentioned an image description, and not a tactile model or even the idea that a poster could communicate information through touch? Let's change this. Tactile access is about undoing the dominant hierarchy of the senses, and about trying things that shift the definitions of what we consider (information) design to be. For our semester, this means: We’ll experiment, feel, touch, play, design, make access, make mistakes, discuss, make again.

With our theme of tactile access, we will approach the semester hands-on (or feet-on, nose-on…). Our time together will be structured through design experiments and the development of tactile prototypes. We’ll start with tactile design methods such as making and using a Touch Journal to record experiences of touch and learn about theories and practices of tactile access from disabled scholars, designers and activists. For our first prototype, we will feel our way through the campus and do a multisensorial access mapping. Which barriers do we touch upon, and how could navigation on campus unfold through tactile ways of knowing? From there, we will investigate the (in)accessibilities of online spaces and practice with digital tactile design methods. We will get buzzing and vibrating by learning about DIY electronics and alternative controllers. Prototypes will experiment towards touching digital objects or navigating digital and hybrid spaces. Finally, we will meet the Rundgang with open hands and develop multisensorial forms of making and presenting works. 

No technical skills are required to join in, and everyone is welcome.

What you will learn:
➜ how to collectively do access mapping starting from our location on campus to document multisensorial access experiences and identify access barriers
➜ how to work with a Touch Journal (sketchbook for recording tactile experiences) as a tool for multisensorial studies of design problems
➜ how to engage with key theoretical and practical foundations of tactile access, including John Lee Clark’s concept of Distantism, Tactile Descriptions, and the design of Touch Tours
➜ how to prototype forms of digital tactile access, developing interfaces and tools that intervene in sensory hierarchies and expand tactile ways of knowing-making
➜ how to design for all senses and a variety of bodyminds by learning from disabled experts and designers

Goals:
➜ recognize sensory hierarchies as dominant design constructs, understand how they shape access and exclusion, and challenge them in your own practice
➜ practice tactile design methods that foreground embodied, collective and multisensorial knowledge
➜ engage critically with disability-led theories and practices of tactile access, focusing on the work of disabled researchers, artists and designers
➜ experiment with tactile and multisensorial design practices in digital / mixed reality spaces
➜ contribute to tactile access as a generative design practice that helps rethink and remake how knowledge and environments are produced
➜ develop accessible and tactile designs and exhibition formats for the SI Rundgang show by applying your design skills on access aesthetics and tactile/multisensorial access

Formats:
➜ Hands-on access studies on campus
➜ Biweekly Touch Journal Inputs and Prompts
➜ Design and Prototyping Workshops with Iz & invited guests
➜ Project work and exhibition planning

Reader: A selection of relevant material will be provided for all participants during February.

Access Info: In person + hybrid/online classes. Automated captions on video calls. Collective conditions and access agreements. Transcripts and collective note-taking. To be shaped further by our group. Send me in email if you have questions or would like to discuss access requirements before the course starts: hello@izpaehr.xyz

About me: Iz Paehr is a disabled artist-designer. Starting from access knowledge, they challenge, hack and reinvent socio-technical systems. In Iz’ work, disability is a motor for creativity and an epistemic position from which aesthetic practices arise. izpaehr.xyz

Schedule: For a first overview over the semesters’ structure, please check our Calendar (Link). The dates mentioned here are preliminary and might change due to availability, capacities and needs.

Additional Activities: A series of additional activities, such as thematic inputs, guests and plenary meetings run in tandem with the semesters’ assignment. For topics and dates please check the calendar. These activities are an integral part of SI and your participation is strongly advised.

Consultations: As in every semester, we offer individual and group-consultations. Available dates are mentioned in the calendar and additional dates can be requested.

Individual Projects, ongoing Collaborations and Graduation Projects: A specific schedule for all projects independent from this semesters’ assignment has been announced in a separate email. Let’s discuss.

 

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