INFRARED DOCUMENTATION

Artistic Action with students from the Fine Arts Department, Tarnovo University

Author Atanas Totlyakov

When we talk about the tactile, we can doubtlessly argue that the most sensorially stimulating situation is when we are placed in an environment completely deprived of light. In this case the main source of information, which usually comes through vision, is suspended, and all other senses become much more acute, which transforms the overall disposition of man towards the world.
The tactile, however, is always personal and concrete. It cannot be documented in “clean,” “raw” form, and only its external expressions could be “recorded” and saved. Verbal narration is often insufficient for detailed description, and video technology that could record the subtlety of reactions requires light and would destroy the experience. This is the issue addressed by the Infrared Documentation experiment to create a visual image of a touch-art creation. This is done through a photocamera that carries out shooting in the range invisible for human eye: the infrared spectrum. The daily clothes we dress is the selected topic. These clothes are in on-going contact with our skin and this makes them an important symbol of tactile art. Five black T-shirts are arranged hanging in a row in a dark corridor, and the textile is stretched to its limits on a wooden wall. The task for the participants is to decorate the shirts with textile paint, as we use tubes of paints where touch and strength are required to squeeze the paste out of its container as an additional textile element in the performance, as the amount of paint depends on the strength applied on the tube. The black color of the paint, the textile, and the surrounding environment do not allow the participants to exert visual control. The only way for knowledge and control is through touch.