A visual artist, a coder, a sound engineer, and a mental health expert collaborate for an intriguing live event called ‘Together with Touch’
There are a few things unusual about ‘Together With Touch’, a lively art exhibit focused on mental health – hence, interesting. First, the nature of the event itself. This includes contemporary dance, sounds generated through a live Twitter feed, and an audience that can shape this sound.
Collaborators on the program in Bengaluru include a mental health specialist, a coder, a sound artist and a visual artist.
The venue of the event is not in an intimate, silent artistic space but in a mall. Although the event deals primarily with mental health, there is also a subtext to social media, technology, consumerism, global relations, among other things.
It’s all…a little abstract, isn’t it?
“Yeah, it should be,” laughs visual artist Lena Heubusch on a call from Germany. Lena put this event together. She was scheduled to visit India as a part of the Bangalore Residency, an artist exchange programme. But the pandemic proved to be a hindrance. Shortly after she had the opportunity to be a part of Virtual Artistic Exchange 2021 – facilitated by Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore longtime partner and Banglo Residency host Walkin Studio – Leena came up with the idea.
“The word ‘contact’ has become very important in the last two years because of the pandemic. Our physical contact was restricted but we contacted each other digitally,” she says. Upon reflection, she came up with these questions: How is contact perceived when organisms touch through modern technology? How can we experience the feeling of being one body in the digital realm?
These questions led to the creation of ‘Together with Touch’.
For this project, Leena put together three Indian artists – sound artist Nikhil Nagraj, creative coder Gaurav Singh, and movement artist Avril Stormi Ungar, who is also a mental health expert.
Gaurav and Nikhil contributed with an algorithm that created the sounds for Twitter conversations related to mental health. On the day of the event, there will be a live Twitter feed that produces a sound to which Avril will react with movements or calmness.
Visitors to the mall will not be passive observers. They can send tweets that will alter the sounds and, in turn, Avril’s actions, thus bridging the digital and physical worlds.
The show is happening December 18th at Vega City Mall at 4pm and 6.30pm and on publicdomain.garden online
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