#socialtouch

An encouraging pat on the shoulder. A firm handshake when meeting someone new. Or an invigorating team huddle before a sports game. These are all examples of what we consider ‘social touch’: physical gestures that we use in our daily interactions, often without even thinking about it. Considering the importance of social touch in relation to our relational, psychological, and physiological well being, Social Touch shows how artists explore new ways of social interaction in an increasingly digital world.

Lancel/Maat’s Saving Face (2012-2020) invites participants to digitally replicate their own face. By caressing their features, the various faces of the participants then merge together, co-creating a “shared face of the city” and sharing the experience of social touch in a smart public space.

While Lancel/Maat look at what gestures can create through playful interactions, Constant Dullaart’s Empty Gesture (2016) points out how futile online interactions can be. Showing the unmistakable position of two hands holding a smartphone, this “empty gesture” alludes to our interactions on social media platforms and the superficial self-validation we tend to seek from these exchanges.

Thomas Hirschhorn also questions in what ways we are still touched by images appearing on our screens. In the film Touching Reality (2012), he highlights the increasing numbness we experience in relation to the seemingly endless stream of gruesome images of violence and war, as they are mediated through our screens.