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4TU. Design United Expo Design Bridges

Situated Access

Subjective AI Classification as a Reflective Design Tool

Voelobjecten van kunstwerken uit het museum

Giulia Talamini explores how museums can become more accessible to people with visual impairments. Together with seven participants she trained personal AI classification models to reveal new perspectives on art and accessibility.

We trained personal AI models to make our own experiences and interpretations of art visible.

Situated Access explores new ways of approaching accessibility in museums. Museums often assume that visitors can see, shaping what can be accessed, how artworks can be experienced, and whether a meaningful connection with the work is possible.

The project was developed in collaboration with the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo and seven participants, each with their own relationship to blindness or visual impairment. Participants trained personal AI models to classify artworks from the museum collection using self-defined affect labels. The models’ often unexpected predictions opened space for conversations about expectations and interpretations that had previously remained unspoken. The project resulted in two designs for the museum: a multisensory tour and a permanent tactile object.

The project explores how training AI classification models can become a way to reflect on our own patterns. By allowing an external ‘something’ to continue our behaviour, it becomes possible to look back at our behaviour from a different, more neutral perspective.

About Giulia Talamini

Giulia is a graduate of Industrial Design at TU/e. Her work focuses on accessibility and inclusivity. Her vision is that design should be used to question entrenched power structures and create space for alternative ways of relating to technology, culture, and one another.

Niobe - Constant Permeke

Echo - Chris Booth

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