timhunkin/the museum of......

	THE FEAR ROOM FOR THE MUSEUM OF EMOTIONS (In collaboration with Sarah Angliss 1999) The Museum of Emotions was part of a series of 'Museums of....' in the Oxo tower, South Bank, London. Sarah and I became involved because of some consultancy we had done for the Science Museum Wellcome wing on possible exhibits about the emotions. The Science museum never used any of our ideas but Claire Pattey and Pippa Bailey asked us to try and build the section about fear on a shoestring budget for their 'the museum of emotions'.

	The final effect was virtually impossible photograph but we were pleased with it. In addition to the ideas in the drawing we added low light cameras in the corridor with video monitors at the far end. This allowed visitors who had been through to 'torture' those inside, pushing button to activate icy draughts and strips of cloth brushing against people's faces. We abandoned the turnstyle restricting entry to the dentist's room to one person at a time. Although this was much more frightening, it was totally counter-intuitive to visitors - they wanted to go in with their friends and have a laugh. We got one art review criticising it for not being truely about fear which I was delighted by. I hadn't thought of the difference between art and entertainment being so clear cut before, and I was flattered to be put on the entertainment side of the fence. The labels for the phobia cases are on the mongrelmedia website.