Artworks such as paintings or sculptures are accessible mainly through vision (“visual art”). Whilst blind and partially sighted people are the primary considered by other means to access to art works, several groups need also other alternative solution in order to experience art and benefit from the beauty, emotion or information inspired by these objects.
These include young children, particularly those acquiring language; elderly people who are losing visual acuity; people with limited attention spans or other cognitive disabilities; people who are temporarily disabled through illness or injury;  migrants and tourists for whom a local language is not well known; and economically and socially disadvantaged groups who are unfamiliar with or alienated by traditional ways of experiencing and engaging with art.
More generally, all museum visitors can benefit from audio-tactile access to the "visual arts". Experiencing a painting without sight allows a visitor to mentally witness the genesis of the work and visitors who are exposed to audio and tactile experiences alongside visual ones form more long-lasting memories of the art works. 
Very elementary trials at tactile presentation of artworks exist in research laboratories and some museums.
In research laboratories such approaches are related to several synergetic components such as through the design of new multi-touch stimulation devices, the models of percepts’ emergence from perceptions (stimulation), object simplification with “conservation of meaning”, multimodal data fusion (e.g. with audio-description) etc.
Museums are not only interested in multimodal (audio-tactile) presentations of artworks, but also in the physical accessibility of exhibition halls and self-guidance through collections. Specific wearable technologies and specific adaptable guides for indoor navigation are necessary.   
Therefore, the objective of this session is to provide a state-of-the-art of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies)-based solutions for accessible artworks and to suggest future lines of enquiry.

Contributions are invited on the following topics including but not limited to :

1. State-of-the art advances in tactile representations of artworks.
2. Mobile assistance for self-indoor navigation.
3. Touch stimulation techniques and supportive technologies.
4. Methods for segmentation of images of paintings.
5. New multimodal representations of artworks.
6. From stimulations to a  concept (percept) : models and their experimental validation.
7. Rehabilitation of the percept emergence from perceptions.
8. Models of interactions for man-machine wearable platform.
9. Emergence of qualia and their sharing.
10. Technologies for the assistance of visually impaired people/subjects in museums.
11. Approaches to experience art without sight.

• Authors submitting to this STS have to follow the general submission, publishing and registration procedure of the conference.
• Where possible, presentations should be accessible to blind and partially blind people.
• STS contributions will pass the standard peer reviewing process of the conference.
• Contributions to the STS have to be submitted using the ICCHP standard submission procedures.

Chairs

• 
  Edwige Pissaloux, University of Rouen Normandy - LITIS
• 
  Marion Chottin, IRHIM ENS Lyon/CNRS
• Hannah Thompson, Royal Holloway University of London
• Clementine Berthelot, Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux
• Abderkadder El Moataz, Greyc/CNRS, Université de Caen Normandie