ASMR Meets the Museum: Behind the Scenes with Julie Rose Bower

The Sensory Side of History: ASMR, Museums, and Cultural Connection

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Now, on to the interview.

I have been a longtime fan of ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response. Psychology Today describes it as “a tingling sensation, typically on the scalp, neck, or back, that some people report feeling in response to certain visual or auditory stimuli.” If you are curious about what ASMR is, search the acronym on YouTube and you’ll be treated to the sounds of haircuts, people whispering into microphones, historical roleplay with quiet talk, no-talking videos of antiquarians restoring leather goods, and much more. Our very STEM-forward world has privileged things whose value can be measured with tools we have on hand (Think why students choose STEM majors over arts and humanities because of the alleged “value” of those majors on the job market). And yet, I know from my own life that the things that I love the most often exist outside a scale or easy definition, like history or even ASMR.

Imagine my delight when I discovered the Victoria and Albert Museum started issuing their own ASMR videos in which curators whisper details about an object into microphones while the camera shows us close-ups of the object itself. This series felt made for me; ASMR focuses on learning about culture through collections? I can’t get enough. Julie Rose Bower, a sound artist integral to the project, describes it as an “Experiential videography series that discovers the museum’s native ASMR effects. ASMR at the Museum is a collaboration with museum experts – curators, conservators, and librarians – to share their up-close experience of precious and delicate exhibits on camera within a specialist microphone setup. This calm, relaxing experience explores the sensation of being behind the scenes at the V&A. A unique digital addition to what may be sensorily experienced by IRL museum-goers. “ If you haven’t heard it, check out a playlist of the videos in the series here.

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I recently had the chance to interview Julie Rose Bower about her work with ASMR and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Julie Rose is a sound artist, designer and researcher working with Foley sound effects and ASMR performance. She recently took a break from her dissertation work to answer some questions about her art, about the relationship between sound and pleasure, and her work with the Victoria and Albert Museum.

MM: What drew you to work with sound? I’d love to hear about your journey to find this work.

JRB: I grew up playing in bands and being into the alternative music scene. I grew up in Wolverhampton in the West Midlands which was on all of the touring circuits so it was great for music. Mix tapes and messing about with audio hardware was a major part of how I socialised and spent my time so I got really well-practiced in combining sounds and using tape media as well as going to gigs and playing. When I finished school I worked behind the bar at Wolverhampton Civic Hall which is a gig venue and behind the scenes at the Grand Theatre in my uni holidays. I found myself more drawn to theatrical performance at university and found ways to combine this with playing music in devised performances. I did a theatre training and working on site-specific and immersive theatre for several years before I took a career break to have a baby. That’s when I decided to focus primarily on sound in my future practice - it was a conscious choice to shift my focus from movement into sound. I made a show using everyday props and objects and a loop station I had in my cupboard and that was my show Foley Explosion. It was part of NOW 17 at The Yard Theatre and toured to cinemas, music venues and festivals like SPILL. The ASMR element emerged from that - student reviewers noted the mesmeric, satisfying quality of sound performance I was creating and I started to consciously engage with ASMR practice resoundtracking videos using Foley and whispers. This formed the basis of my PhD research into the gender politics of sound and a more digital practice.

MM: What sound work has influenced your own work as an artist?

JRB: I have a strong auditory memory – sounds play back in my mind like a tape recorder when I remember them. So sometimes I am quite surprised when I listen back to my work to discover references and influences that were not consciously placed. Like I recently composed a piece for electric guitar and realised listening back that I had made something rhythmically similar to the opening guitar riff from the album version of Madonna’s Like A Prayer which I have listened to thousands of times having had it on vinyl as a kid and I guess it has become part of me. I seek out things I haven’t heard from the archive and I keep up with contemporary music, too. I am conscious that anything I listen to will influence me. Right now I am very into Hiroshi Yoshimura who made Japanese ambient minimalist electronica in the 1980s. Also a YouTube channel by Tato Schwab but only the time-stretch media. It is like a ready-made ASMR music, choral and celestial.

MM: How can sound affect the body? What, for example, can ASMR do (for people new to it?)

JRB: Sound can keep you company. It can be very good company! It can also support your mood, make you feel safe, give you a sense of privacy and control. I think of the ASMR tingles as a form of pleasure activism but it’s not so much about adding more sound as tuning into particular favoured sounds in a certain way. It’s a way of listening, I suppose.

MM: Did becoming an ASMR producer reveal something to you about it that you didn’t know from listening to it?

JRB: I made ASMR before I discovered it online and I am still going about my ASMR practice in a very idiosyncratic way - my style is not that of the channel-fronting ASMRtist but more at a remove from selfie culture. I like the idea of figuring the way I prefer to listen rather than my body itself; a kind of aesthetic sonic formula rather than a set of prepared triggers and performance tropes. I like checking in on other ASMRtists to see what’s fresh and what’s happening but I think that with codification comes ossification so the more established the culture is the more samey it can get. I’m not too fond of most roleplays and the trend towards remaking mainstream films in an ASMR style. I need more novelty than that to get me into it - I like Latte ASMR and her detailed, slow approach. She always surprises me like when she pierces your ears - that is far out. I suppose the suggestive qualities of touch are always exciting but only if you like the person doing the touching! There’s a big question mark for me around touch and consent in relation to ASMR. How can you refuse intimacy that is baked into these sounds through proximity of sonic capture and contextual cues? Sound design is a form of penetration and online you can just turn it off but now ASMR is cross-pollinating into offline spaces there are ethical issues to be thought through in relation to sonic intimacy.

MM: For folks reading this who may never have heard of ASMR, what would you say is the benefit of exploring it either as an art or as a potential therapeutic practice?

JRB: I think some people are already very attuned to this feeling and approach and others not at all. I thought it was interesting when the girls on White Lotus said “let’s do ASMR” and it was a way to push boundaries of sensuous intimacy within youth culture alongside other classic teenage rebellions - smoking / vaping, drug-taking, sleepovers. What I’m trying to say is that it can be beneficial but that it’s also culturally specific and that can create problems - you have to negotiate context carefully for it to be something that is a net good. It’s not good in itself - it could even be abused. I myself would not want to visit a Whisper Lodge experience - it would be too contrived and I would find that squeamish. ASMR is a form of theatre in that way - the theatre of the senses.

MM: What inspired the “ASMR at Museum” series?

People who work at the museum often get ASMR visiting the backstage spaces and they wanted to get in on the online trend and get some clicks I guess by making something that worked for the museum’s online channels. I have a background in site-specific work and my research had just moved into ASMR so they approached me and I wrote a brief about the play of hands and objects, emphasis on textures and bespoke microphone setups and it was a good fit.

MM: Do you have any favorite videos from this series, or could you choose one and talk us through your production process? For example, I’m curious how you select a curator, librarian, or expert to feature describing an object from the museum’s collections. How do you tell someone will be a good ASMR collaborator? From there, what is the process you work through to produce a video?

JRB: The content department at the museum identify the opportunity for a video shoot and sometimes I get to meet the experts in advance and do a site visit but not always. People don’t realise that the YouTube channel and other social media are seen as a very distant third place to the exhibitions programme or print matter for the museum which are far better established. I prefer it when I do get to meet people and do visits in advance because I can plan more. I also sometimes get a say over objects and what might work best but again not always - we always work with the objects they have passing through at the time so we are somewhat limited by that. As time has gone on the museum experts are more and more pushed for time so it is hard to make space for this kind of video work. Anyone who knows detail about an object and process and can handle the object could be a good ASMR subject. Something magic happens when museum experts exercise their privilege of touch over the museum objects – their voice ducks right down to a reverent, quiet calm. It is to do with the care of the handling practice and the preciousness of the collection and that stewardship – it’s perfect for ASMR. Handling A Eurovision Dress and Turning the Pages of an Illuminated Manuscript are probably my favourites. I think we nailed those.

MM: What does it mean to invite sound in as a way of understanding or knowing spaces like museums and objects? Do you think this will change how places like museums reach out to their audiences?

JRB: I hope so. There is definitely a participatory turn happening and a greater interest in immersive and multisensory experiences as well as the wellbeing remit of having arts and culture spaces. Also a turn towards access and inclusion. There’s a huge opportunity here but it will take investment – it is a very different skillset and technological remit to this kind of work. When I made the interactive gallery Meridians Meet for WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD: The World of ASMR at Design Museum they expected it to work 7 days a week for almost a year with audiences dwelling in the space so much longer than average because it was both interactive and really sensorily comfortable – soft seating, soft sound, a really different kind of public space. I’d love to see museums go from having mainly objects under glass to a more active format but this will take big investment. The idea with ASMR at the museum was that sound tells you a lot about what it is like to touch an object – but of course most people can’t do that because of the delicacy and uniqueness of the collection. Live amplified handling experiences where experts share the privilege of touch would be great but for now it’s just video – the theatrical element would be expensive!

MM: ASMR is notoriously effective but subjective in terms of predicting to whom it will offer a therapeutic effect or a nails-on-chalkboard response. (For example, I love it but my wife can’t handle the sound of it). Is it possible that viewers could develop a negative reaction to the objects or spaces if they associate it with ASMR and are not wired to find the sound therapeutic? Is that part of the work?

JRB: ASMR is not for some people. Others love it. It’s not to do with ‘wiring’ in my opinion but ‘attunement’. These are learned sensory responses to do with early experiences. Misophonia (hatred of sounds) is a very real thing and it is like the evil twin to ASMR – it is the same palette of sounds with a totally different valence of response. Eating, clothing sounds, rustling, tapping. These are classic triggers for both ASMR and misophonia. People who suffer with misophonia have a very debilitating experience but I think more attention gets paid to this negative response because people are trying to pathologise and sell a cure – I am endlessly being advertised special ear plugs and so on. Really it is not the sounds themselves that are the issue, it is the sensations produced by them. There is no cure for misophonia! I am careful not to insist on a highly particular aesthetic – if there is a bridge to ordinary life then it is a staged encounter with online culture which makes sense aesthetically. ASMR is in the museum – I didn’t invent that and you couldn’t take it away if you tried.

To learn more about Julie Rose Bower’s work, visit her website.

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