Video Tactility
Symposium:
Session Title:
- Interactivity and Art
Presentation Title:
- Video Tactility
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
This paper will discuss new research involving repurposing the mobile phone from a textual and voice device to a more multi-modal, synaesthetic, and tactile performance and expression device. This new work seeks new ways for individuals to express themselves in intimate, visual and non-verbal ways – akin to sending remote ‘touch’ messages, immediately ‘known’ or intuitively understood at a pre-conscious level – to create a direct tactile route to interpersonal communication. The project develops novel ways to repurpose mobile phones, wearable technologies, video and textiles, for different or fresh approaches to expression, in as close to physical means as possible. This would use both with the mobile connection and wearable, tactile interaction. Ideally, there would be an exchange, a way to reply to mobile message sender. This creates not only a one-way connection from phone to body but a non-verbal, embodied, multi-sensory dialogue. Thus, this research explores how to relay the “felt experience” or touch sensation back through wearable biofeedback devices in the garment, to send back a reply directly from the garment, as well as through the recipient’s mobile phone.
This project will draw upon the visual material in the mobile users’ environment and any imagery they think relevant or essential. It will investigate sensory experience, conceptual and interaction and facilitation of the physiological experiences of emotion in the body and brain. This ‘tactile video’ exploration, however, will develop a new or specific video vocabulary or symbolic lexicon to express with, to construct video ‘sentences’ or ‘utterances’ then translated into a distance touch or embrace. The intention is to create a more structured semiotic method for people with physical, verbal or linguistic limitations to use for more personal purposes and have a more embodied, tactile and visual means of messaging.
