TACTILE INTERACTIVITY

Installation for the creation of a tactile object

19.04.2011

Author Atanas Totlyakov

This is an installation of a video (4 minutes and 10 seconds in length) and an object, a box (35 см / 35 см / 35 см in size) covered with black cloth with two openings at two opposite sides. The projection is accompanied by a tactile “participation” as each spectator is given the opportunity to model a piece of clay placed inside the box. The interactivity of the installation comes from the on-going transformation of the object, while the sculptor does not possess any visual contact with the object in work of progress.
The video presents an analogous situation. The participants place their hands inside the box through a red curtain opening and each successive participant explores the way the predecessor has shaped the clay piece inside only relying on their sense of touch. Thus the hands of the participants and their actions are the main visual element of the video. The parallel actions aim to create a situation in which the digital image and the real touch focus the somatic attention of the spectator on the sensorial perception of touch and the registered tactile, not visual, information.