HyperTouching

Can I Touch You Online?

HyperTouching is a nomadic and online platform for the experience of touching and feeling touched, in technically mediated environments. It is born from our desire to be able to touch, and feel touched at a distance.
HyperTouching is a research and dialogue platform, to share about our experience and knowledge, about our bodily connections changing through ubiquitous technological mediation.

Together we develop new visions of Future Touching Ecologies.

During the COVID19 pandemic, it became clear that access to these forms of knowledge and insights are limited or fragmented; and with little exposure in the museum world and it's in collections. HyperTouching is an interdisciplinary platform, that combines insights and visions from interactive media performance art, science, ethics, interaction design.

Touch is felt on the skin, in the brain and in the imagination.

Starting 2023, it contributes critically and inquisitively to accessibility; development; public storytelling and new narratives. It is meant for artists, designers, writers, curators, television makers, scientists and the public.
HyperTouching is open to participate in its development.

HyperTouching consists of:

1) International Round Table Talks about current insights and research
2) Workshops
3) Artworks, Exhibitions, Pop-Up Touching Zones
4) Website: Art, Creative Industry and Science Collection
5) Publications.

Main starting points:

CAN I TOUCH YOU ONLINE? Touch in Museums.
What media artworks are included in museum collections? On the importance and possibilities of museum presentation of technologically mediated physical togetherness and touch. The platform opens collections and activates interdisciplinary collaboration between artists, scientists, designers, curators, and the public.
CAN I TRUST YOU ONLINE? Ethics.
How are different personal and cultural implications of touch experienced in the case of mediated touch? How do we experience agency for consent; responsibility and vulnerability, bias and inclusiveness; control and trust, through technologically mediated affective touch?
CAN I FEEL YOU ONLINE? NeuroScience in XR, mixed and merging realities.
Scientific research focuses on A.I., control, automation and data collection. Art, on the other hand, stimulates processes of subjective experience and meaning-making. Can we share these approaches interdisciplinarily and learn from each other?

Contexts:

Conversations take place in art-related environments at (museums, media festivals); locations where ethical questions surrounding touch are addressed (healthcare facilities, hospitals, educational institutions, schools); and cultures with different ethical approaches to intimacy and touch.

In collaboration with and with generous support of:

LIMA Platform for Media Art Amsterdam (Gaby Wijers (director), Sanneke Huisman (curator, editor, writer)).
Dutch Touch Group & World Haptics 2023
Mixed Reality Lab, University Nottingham
Mondriaan Fund, Fund for Creative Industries