Please don't touch.
The glass cage surrounding the art object is primarily making it to art. The “Please don’t touch” sign is an integral component of the piece of art. It disconnects the visitor from the artwork and is thereby limiting the experience of this exhibit to a merely visual one. The free play of cognitions is thereby stimulated. Especially pieces which are working with contradicting materials allude to the previous experiences of the visitor. Even though they won’t ever have the chance to physically experience the exhibit, the stimulation of their cognition is achieved and desired.
If the artwork consists for example of a stone covered in a withered and dry leaf that seems to crumble at every touch, the divergence of the previous experiences and the contrast of the durability versus the fragility is producing such contradictory Ideas that these cannot be thought together into one object.
The perforated metal cube, at whose perforations thin rubber tubes are all knotted, suggests an inner image similarly contradictory to the ideas, which unites two tactile impressions, different from each other, in one object. The tactile inexperience of the total artwork disturbs the viewer, and the physical barrier of the glass cage imprisons the tactile longing. The incomplete sensory experience leaves the viewer behind dissatisfied and occupies the sense. The experience of the artwork is outsourced to the imagination, where it is able to build new connections that makes the experience of a museum fruitful.