| |
|
|
| Click here for video |
Artist's Statement In this piece you touch a larger-than-life torso that reacts. The skin of the body moves subtly as you move your hand over the surface. If you hold your hand down for a moment and then take it away, an impression of your hand is left behind. This imprint soon lifts off the surface and begins to blow around as if it were a leaf or tissue caught in a breeze. Many people can touch the surface at the same time and the piece will react in a consistent way.
When a friend touches you and takes their hand away, what do you feel afterwards? Is that tingling warmth sensation something of them, or is it created in your body? What remains of yourself when you touch something? If you could see the imprint of your touch, how would it appear? "The Lightness of Your Touch" is the second in a series of pieces that explores this theme. Touch itself is really nothing in and of itself. It is only the boundary between a person and something else. Yet it seems to have a life of its own. My intention was to visualize the ephemeral residue of "touch". By showing peoples touches to be semi-physical objects, I make people aware of their touching, and perhaps to encourage more touching. I believe that people need more physical contact to be healthy and balanced.
Many western cultures discourage touch. Through fear of litigation or sexual harassment, it seems that personal contact has become something to be avoided. One woman who saw this piece was a nurse in an old-age home. She recounted to me a sad story about how she would regularly hug the clients until the establishment forbade her from doing so. They were
more concerned about their liability than the true well-being of the
people in their care. I hope that this piece encourages discussion about touch and personal boundaries in general, whether intimate, friendly, or for therapeutic healing.
Technical Details
The piece works using infrared rear-illumination and a video camera
with an infrared-pass filter. When people touch the screen, their
hands reflect the infrared light and the camera picks that up as a bright
region in the image. The region is tracked until it disappears or
moves too quickly. When that happens, the
tracked image is converted to a geometric outline and a texture map.
The outline is triangulated and embedded in a 3D physical model made
of a network of springs and dampers.
This 3D model is placed in a simulation of wind flow and the "touch"
begins to move as it catches different parts of the flow field.
There are several whirlpools and currents that are designed to
make the touches flow over the body. Eventually the touches fade
away leaving the surface ready for new interactions.
The projection screen is curved to make it closer to the shape of the
torso that is being projected. To counteract the distortion caused by
the curved screen, the inverse distortion functions were calculated
analytically and applied to the video image and the output 3D geometry.
This was done to keep the hand touches accurately calibrated to their
screen locations.
|
| |
Exhibition HistoryAn early version (video) of
the piece was first shown at MIT's Compton Gallery in the
Collision Collective
show from Boston Cyberarts, 2004 |
| It was shown at the Decordova Museum
Gallery in the Summer Annual Show of 2004
|
| |
| Back |
