Tactile interpretation of land signs

Author Atanas Totlyakov

The installation aims the synthesis of visual and tactile in order to produce a holistic unity of perception. The element that inspired the art piece is the marks left by car tires in snow or on the asphalt surface as an element that repeated in successive overlaps. In this sense, this land sign is extremely diffused and recognizable across the world. Photographs and graphically modeled images of tire imprints in snow are used and their lines are manually engraved in low relief onto large vinyl plates producing a variety of textures with rich potential to be explored manually. The large piece is developed along both vertical and horizontal axes, for example the floor of a room.

The central art piece involves hand-engraved PVC (plastic) pieces. A person is lying on the soft mat and touching the plastic pieces with engraved relief surround the mat. In this body position, the body is drawn to tactile experiences of its surrounding already experienced through the direct contact with the ground. Also the range of sight is very limited and the person cannot perceive the whole art piece surrounding his or her. The position of the head naturally leads to the desire to close one’s eyes and rest and this is how consciousness is naturally transformed through our bodily position into a propensity to experience the world through tactile perception more than sight.

Installation description
1. Two digital prints on vynil with size 120/180 cm What is sought is the process of distilling the image of marks left in snow by a parking car which are being transformed through a synthesized graphic image with rich semiotic content. The importance if to help the perceivers focus on the transformation of a visual into a tactile object.

2. Series of 20 pieces made of hand-pressed paper with relief imprint (170 / 120 / 4 mm each). Paper as a material offers pleasant tactile experience and the base of the image is the same basic graphic sign re-created through relief imprint. The goal of multiplication of the pieces is to offer people direct contact with the objects, since tactile art requires one-on-one interaction with the art work.

3. Horizontally engraved PVC (plastic) plates and a soft mat (camping mat could also serves) placed along the horizontal surface of the terrain, for example the floor of the room. The aim of the piece is to place the participant into a paradigm new and unusual position in the context of art perception transforming him or her from spectator (visual reception of information) into perceiver (tactile reception of information). The perceiver lies on the ground on the soft mat, and from this relaxed, comfortable state of the body, the perceiver’s hands and mind are free to fully focus on the experience of touching the vinyl plates surrounding the body on all sides. In the perceiver’s mind signals are registered from both the palms and the finger tips and at the same time from the whole body (the frontal part and the hips and thighs) as it is in direct contact with the ground. Since the perceiver has already remembered visually the sign from looking at it from above before lying down, (s)he is letting the sense of touch replace and add to the sense of vision thus truly empowering the synthesis of visual and tactile perceptions.

Size of installation– 200 / 230 сm

A version of the Tactile interpretation of a land sign was presented in the urbanized context of Byala during the international meeting part of the TOUCH Project and alongside the International Arts Symposium. The chosen site of the installation combined a variety of tactile elements: open space with a pool opening the senses to the experience of breeze, sun light, water drops and coolness which enriched the skin receptors. This experience showed that tactile art pieces can be shown and experienced well in any public space and in the context of large groups, which adds to its social component and aim to involve new audiences and foster the interaction of various groups of people in various spaces.