Top image: There is a tree in the heart of death (2014) by Christina Poblador

Twinning Machine 4.0 (2014) by Tad Ermitano highlights the relationship between vision, proprioception and kinaesthesia

At Sensorium 360°, currently on show at the Singapore Art Museum, visitors get to engage not just their five senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell, but four other senses including position, pain, balance, and even time.

Continuum of Consciousness (2012) by Linda Solay draws on the senses of sight, sound and smell

The works are by 11 artists from Singapore and around Asia, with a quarter being newly commissioned pieces just for the exhibition, while the remaining have been tweaked for the show.

Cage (2006 – 2014) by Li Hui

In one darkened room, like a scene from Mission Impossible, artist Li Hui uses green lasers to create two virtual cages. Upon entering the installation, visitors immediately feel a sense of disorientation, and some level of anxiety as they find themselves ‘trapped’ one moment and somehow standing outside their imprisonment the next. While the work relies on visual and spatial perception for sensorial and psychological impact, the artist states that it’s also meant to “suggest at a philosophical level the imaginary boundaries that people determine for themselves, which are wholly reliant on perception rather than reality”.

There is a tree in the heart of death (2014) by Christina Poblador

Another notable installation, “There is a tree in the heart of death” by Christina Poblador explores what happens when our sense of smell and sound are enlisted at the same time. Here, the artist has chosen music that hold deep personal and emotional resonance for her. The sonic notes – some rather haunting – are then translated into olfactory ones to create scent compositions that synesthetically respond to their musical sources. Then, in an adjoining room, visitors are invited to put together their own scented creations from 30 perfume notes, inspired by their own personal choice of song.

The Overview Installation (2013, 2014) by Eugene Soh

Even augmented reality in thrown into the mix. In “The Overview Installation”, artist Eugene Soh seeks to transform the way we see the world and ourselves. A maze is set before a visitor, who is then asked to don a set of modified goggles. One’s viewpoint is immediately replaced by images streaming from closed-circuit televisions, which give off different perspectives and makes it difficult for one to navigate the course of the maze.

The initial effect is disorientating to say the least. And as the artist intended, the different information received by the brain prompts “a cognitive adaptation” and heightens the sense of body and spatial awareness.

Ale Lino (2003 – 2014) by Melati Suryodarmo delves into the sense of pain

The exhibition Sensorium 360°: Contemporary Art and the Sensed World is being held at the Singapore Art Museum from 31 July to 22 October 2014.