“Virtual touch” is a project to discover and expect the various possibilities of futuristic human contact in the post-pandemic context.
This final major project’s core idea and objective are to investigate the importance of touch in between human contact and to explore the possibilities of virtual touch in a post-pandemic context. In addition, the project is aimed at the audience who have suffered the effects of a pandemic and are unable to engage with others which leads to psychological illness. As well as this, I have reflected on and investigated the social implication of human interaction during the pandemic, and I have researched the perceptions of touch among people in different cultural contexts. Furthermore, I have also reflected on the possible negative effects of virtual touch as a technology in the future context of human contact.
In this main video, I look ahead to a concept installation. The light blue object is called “Personal Bean”, it is an information collector to which the audience can upload some touch or hug information.
After it has been attached to the main installation, it will extract information from the audience and undergo different transformations to allow the audience to experience different touch experiences that various materials bring to them.
“A human touch is explosive. It’s so warm that it melts away everything, including our ego.”
— Uday Mukerji, Dead Man Dreaming