sensate: bodies and design

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 2009
Design / Fabrication: S/U/M

Embedded within the entry wall of Sensate: Bodies and Design, this installation occupied a liminal space between signage and surface. The low-relief typography swells outward, reading alternately as word, texture, or topography depending on one’s vantage.

The wall itself became sensate: a body-like surface responding to light and shadow, legible only through movement. Iterations in the modeling and milling process fine-tuned this oscillation between content and abstraction, typography and terrain.

In the context of Sensate: Bodies and Design—an exhibition exploring the mutable boundary between body and object—the installation literalized this entanglement, turning the act of reading into a tactile encounter.