Final Presentation (Touchy, Eric Siu 29/11)

                                                Touchy

A) Introduction to the work

The artwork "Touchy" is made by a Hong Kong new media artist Eric Siu ."Touchy is released on October 2012. It has been shown in many places, including Tokyo in Japan, Australia , China and Hong Kong,etc. Until now,"Touchy" has been performed 41 times in 8 cities of 5 countries. Besides, it is wonderful that there are nearly 3600 people has been interacted with "Touchy".

 

B) A detailed description of the work

'Touchy' is a human camera. It weighs 1.17 kg with a height of 163mm, width of 208mm and depth of 239mm. Most of the people can wear it comfortably. The camera can capture images in 640 x 480 and 1600 x 1200 dimensions in JPG format. The photographic device offers an LCD monitor of 3.5 inches across portraying 320 x 240 pixels. The battery can last for 2 hours. 'Touchy' functions as a camera and captures what "it" sees when the wearer get in touch with other people for at least 10 seconds.To describe it more detailed, the eye-hole shutters of touchy close and block the vision of the wearer until people grab the bulb and touch wearer’s skin.The continuous physical body touching between the wearer and other people can give the wearer back his or her own vision, besides, once the touching maintains for 10 seconds, the camera function of touchy will work and captures what the wearer sees. Finally, it will show the pictures on the back of the LCD screen.

C) An evaluation of the work

What is interesting about 'Touchy'??

To me, i think Touchy is a kind of social interaction experiment that help people to communicate and interact with each other in the real world . As Eric Siu said, Touchy is meant to "criticize" the phenomenon that arises from social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter, which allow us to stay connected online while remaining physically detached in real life.
                                                        

    

   Does Anyone have this experience?

Nowadays, our lives are surrounding by diffferent type of social networking sites, Facebook, Twitter, Whatapps, Weibo etc, there is no doubt that these kind of social networks indeed make our lives become more convenient,seems that we can know more about the outside even when we are just  sitting in front of the computer at home, and they help us to keep in touch with our friends anytime. However, to think deeply, are these social networks really help us to develop our relationships between each other? Do our relationships are strengthened by how many likes we can receive from the posts on facebook?

No! They can only allow us to stay connected online but in fact we are still, or even become more apart from each other in reality. Touchy , as a social interaction experiment, concern about the problem arise from social networking and help to solve it by transforming the human being into a social device so as to encourage people to touch the others and to think the ability of body and machine. The skin contact between Touchy and people is breaking the limitation of social networking and the function of capturing the smiley faces share the happinese and the wonderful moments immediately.

In conclusion, Touchy help us to think not only the relationship between people and people, but also the relationship between human and technology.

The 2 key quotes:

“Touchy is not a criticism of the social media and other technology-enabled communication channels. Instead of negating the technological progress, Touchy is a humoristic polemic on the conscious and balanced assimilation of such progress into the contemporary lives.” - Asia Skubisz

“The ten second touch is a great idea. It’s much longer than a casual handshake or hug: an awkward social tension builds up, making the interaction meaningful and memorable.” - Andrew ‘bunnie’ Huang (entrepreneur & hacker)

References:

http://www.designboom.com/art/touchy-a-human-camera-by-eric-siu/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/13/touchy-human-camera_n_1510387.html

Comments on Inter-discommunication Machine

Questions on new media art

Questions:

1.Dada and new media art both described as reactions. What did they react to?

Dada was in part a reaction to the industrialization of warfare and the mechanical reproduction of texts and images while New Media art can be seen as a response to the information technology revolution and the digitization of cultural forms

2.What are some similarities of new media art to Dada, Pop art and Video art?

They have two similarities.

Firstly, they all "focused more on ideas than on objects". 

Secondly, they treat internet serves "as an accessible artistic tool that enabled them to explore the changing relationship between technology and culture".

3.When was net art first included in a major exhibition: Documenta X?

      From 1994 until 1997.

4.Is new media art focused in one country? Why or why not?

No, new media art is not only focused in one country."Because of its close connection to the Internet, however, New Media art was from its inception a worldwide movement", as the internet is a worldwide channel, new media art can spread to different places in the world.

5.Why were many artists drawn to new media art from other disciplines?

Many artists drawn to new media art from other disciplines as new media art contain the concept of globalization, it is not only easier to spread their artworks through the internet, but also more convenient for audiences to notice their works. The convenience of internet enlargers the types and numbers of audiences and break the limitation of districts , it helps to spread the idea of artists to the whole world.