The work Thin Skin is an interactive machine and explores dimensions of touch. Based on the text "On Touching" by Karan Barad, FEMINIST THEORIST and physicist, touch rather describes a repulsion, a repulsion of electrons. If these thoughts are transferred to other median levels of touch, the following questions arise: When do I touch something else? What form and matter can touch take in a social interaction? Is a look, a sentence, a thought a touch? At what point does this touch cross a boundary and become encroaching?
touch can cause a physical deformation of a material in conjunction with its elasticity.
Thin Skin explores the deformation of the skin-like material latex. The closer the viewer gets to the surface, the more the latex surface is stretched backwards. At these points it is stretched until the surface tears at certain points due to the tension. The two-dimensional surface becomes a three-dimensional topography of tension until the moment of tearing.
Touch creates tension. Looks, words, impressions can touch. They can electrify, touch appropriately and inappropriately, in a non-physical way. Amplified by the experience of a pandemic in which physical touch is avoided and unwanted, physical touch gives way to another form of touch.
Touch is political. Touch can be wonderfully tender, but also overwhelming or uncomfortable. In other words, touch can create such a tension that something tears. Tearing. Anger, hatred, sadness, despair.
The work Thin Skin was created in collaboration with Fabian Friese 2021.
At the front of the lower edge of the frame is an ultrasonic sensor that measures how close the viewer is to the latex surface. As soon as he or she gets too close to the surface, the weights attached to the latex surface become heavier. The closer the viewer gets to the surface, the more it stretches backwards.
The weights are attached behind the latex surface. They are three boxes that only gradually fill with water. Another box serves as a water tank. From there, a plastic tube leads to each of the three small boxes. If the ultrasound attached to the front frame measures a certain distance from the observer to the surface, the valves in the small boxes open so that water is diverted from the large tank to the small tanks through the plastic tubes.
