Weird Sensation Feels Good: the exhibition taking ASMR seriously
The Design Museum has created a calm space to feel the strange effects of the internet's soundscape phenomenon.
You’re watching TV; it cuts to the adverts. Claudia Winkleman is stood in the middle of a set, surrounded by microphones. Her head is ensconced by her iconic brunette hair, blocky fringe covering her eyebrows as always. She tells the viewer that if they have a dry scalp, they should buy Head & Shoulders.
Then, she compares itchiness to calm – but without using words. Instead, we hear and see her scratch at her skull, before a montage of sounds and images starts. She runs her hands through her hair, a shower faucet turns on, she flips the cap of the shampoo so the microphone picks up a click, she traces the edge of a coconut and flicks at a water glass to (apparently) produce a ringing sound.
“Everyone soothed?”
It’s a marker of just how mainstream ASMR has become that this niche internet phenomenon is clearly being referenced, but never once mentioned by name.
It’s easy to assume – being someone who has not only researched online behaviour, but is also fairly chronically online herself – that everyone knows what ASMR is. But whilst it’s certainly escaped the confines of small YouTube rabbit holes, it’s still not widely known about (although you might have had the sensation without realising).
ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. It’s a sense of “euphoria or deep calm”, sometimes accompanied by a tingling sensation in the body. The term is used as shorthand for anything that may trigger this response; most commonly, it describes YouTube videos designed to relax the viewer through repetitive whispering, tapping, chewing, scratching, and brushing into microphones. ASMRtists, as they are known, create soundscapes through which the viewer/listener experiences a state of relaxation.
With accounts like GentleWhispering and Gibi ASMR racking up millions of subscribers, ASMR has become a familiar part of online culture – whether being taken seriously or parodied.
The Design Museum is definitely in the former camp with their exhibition Weird Sensation Feels Good: The World of ASMR, curated in collaboration with ArkDes, the Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design. They claim it is the first of its kind in the world.
It's situated in the Design Museum’s subterranean gallery, entered and exited via two narrow staircases. I’ve always found it a strange choice of layout, especially since the interior of the building was entirely reconfigured before the museum relocated and reopened in 2016. The slightly creepy start is made all the more weird for being passed a single two pence piece by the woman on the door, who tells me that I’ll need it for one of the exhibits – for two thirds of the exhibition, I’m clutching it in my palm. I won’t spoil what it’s for.
Descending into the gallery adds to a sense of interiority, enclosure, that is continued in the design of the space within. It is arranged around a huge, soft installation that can’t be seen into from the outside and that must be walked entirely around to enter.
It’s clear almost immediately that this exhibition is less about explanation and more about experiencing. Apart from a short description and helpful glossary at the start, the displays are left to communicate for themselves.
There’s a mix of audio, visual, and tactile exhibits. Long cushions pepper the floor. Headphones hang from outstretched plastic hands. I stood and gazed, hypnotized by a writhing digital cactus that turns its pixels in on itself whilst soft chimes repeat themselves in the background. Later on, I’m enraptured by Bob Ross showing me how to paint little trees. Meanwhile, a metre away, someone sits quietly watching him on another screen as he adds careful brushstrokes to a deep blue lake.
I was particularly delighted by the ‘Meridians Meet’ an installation by artist Julie Rose Bower, which invites visitors to make their own ASMR sounds. When I entered, there were two women, giggling as they tried fluffing makeup brushes against microphones. As I walked through an installation mimicking stepping in snow, one of them looked at me and mouthed “squeeze the bags!”. I did as she said and reached up to squish one of the bags hanging from the scaffold that surrounded me; I gasped in wonder at the crunch and she smiled at my reaction.
Throughout, the audience is invited to immerse themselves in and engage with ASMR in a way that is non-judgemental. This is an exhibition which celebrates naïve curiosity. It’s also a full body experience: it’s impossible for it not to be. I was constantly hyperaware of every single one of my senses. I didn’t feel the typical tingles of ASMR (which I normally experience when listening to certain music), but my breathing definitely slowed and at various points my mouth felt – for want of a better word – funny. I wondered how everyone else was feeling.
That’s the great thing about Weird Sensation Feels Good: by bringing ASMR into an exhibition space, the Design Museum has made something that is normally solo into a community experience. In the final section, everyone takes their shoes off and steps into a padded bowl, then picks from one of a plethora of TV screens and settles in to watch and listen. It’s incredibly endearing to see people enjoy the videos – opposite me someone was napping, whilst diagonally across two girls sat slack-jawed as the screen played a woman setting up IKEA furniture.
At the beginning of the exhibition, we are told that ASMR is “design that mediates between mind and body”. I don’t think that’s true (I’m not a big believer in the Cartesian division, mostly because my mind is part of my body). Assuming that ASMR is some kind of mediator, I’d be more inclined to say that it is mediating between a person and their immediate environment.
The Participant Guide for Weird Sensation Feels Good informs visitors that “consent is key” and we are asked to understand that “ASMR does not commonly occur in group situations but the best experience will be possible when I feel comfortable, relaxed, and I am open-minded”. No filming is allowed inside. It’s a key reason this exhibition works.
There’s parts of it that are definitely uncomfortable: an animated plastic tongue dripping water by Tobias Bradford, repeated videos of manicured nails stroking things, and wet, squelching sounds are a reminder that ASMR can quickly veer into the erotic. Despite this, the exhibition is intent on ignoring the seedier side of the phenomenon, remaining firmly PG throughout. Instead, it focuses on the emotional side, explicitly designed to calm and relax.
Because everyone responds differently to ASMR, it’s impossible to explain it in a traditional sense. Instead, it has to be felt. This requires a level of vulnerability on the part of the visitor, as we expose ourselves to a foreign influence on our bodies and experience its involuntary effects. The Design Museum has succeeded in creating a space in which there’s a shared understanding that we’re all trying to experience something strange, and sort of private, in public. For a moment, we’re all in a soft bubble, separate but together.
Weird Sensation Feels Good: The World of ASMR runs until 10th April 2023. Tickets are £9.50 for adults.
If you want to explore the world of ASMR for yourself, try listening to ASMRctica drawing maps, IKEA ASMR, or ASMR Bakery gently tapping things.
A final thought to leave you on: a poster outside the Design Museum bafflingly states that design is ‘humanity’s best friend’. Please let me know if you have any idea what they’re talking about.
Freya x