Disturbed System

Discomfort Design: Critical Reflection... »

« Distributed Network Art: Protocol and Ritual

Keywords: Group interaction, touch, physical computing, haptic feedback, generative sound, consumer technology, spatialized sound, multisensory, immersive, information interfaces and presentation.

This paper discusses a collaborative practicum PhD thesis work in its final stages of production. The project inquires about the possibilities of the tactile sensation in art to reestablish human sensory relationship with the current technology. The series of interactive sculptures investigate tactile interaction as an aesthetic experience within the multimodal multisensory system. The silicone sculptures Silicone Valley, Hemorrhage, and Disturbed System aim to take visitor’s experience with the artwork into unfamiliar sensory territory. Touch variations to the sculptural surfaces provide electronic feedback of embedded vibration and directional spatialized sound in an installation format. The artwork presents this sensory information in a form of unexpected assemblage of pulsing organic sculptural surfaces and emitting sound. It also places visitors in a shared interactive space, an aura of travelling sound warped by their touch to the sculpture. This shared interaction investigates relationships between nature, artifice, technology, human body and human social group behavior.