We are living in a period of unprecedented social distancing, a period of exponential increase in screen time and growing influence of social media algorithms. Within this context, Laura A Dima has developed an artwork that revitalises our experience of touch.

This multimedia installation consists of two isolated hubs that are part warped confessional, part hallucinatory phone booth. One of the hubs contains a control panel sculpture, while the other hub houses the caressing machine: heated robotic silicone fingers that, once the consent button has been pushed, respond in accordance with the first hub’s interactive sculpture. Thus, it is the participants themselves who, upon entering these hubs, bring to life the defamiliarising sensory realm that is Future Affair. Their physical contact with the objects in each hub allows a thrilling abstracted communication to develop between participants.

Laura A Dima has long been fascinated by touch as an essential aspect of human experience and how to develop new access modes to one of our oldest and deepest needs. She is engaged in thinking about touch as an essential aspect of bonding and emotional response. She alters spaces for audiences to have reconfigured experiences: in Future Affair, participants will develop communication with strangers in a slanted yet profound way, and on the deepest level. They may even be inspired to enter a state of critical introspection, a dissolving of unconscious assumptions.

Future Affair

The Finger Rub Rug consists of a carpet of 1300 silicone replicas of my partner’s fingers, placed in a customised white room. Visitors were encouraged to enter one at a time and touch the fingers, which have varying temperatures. The finger mat also gives off vibrations that pulsate in the rhythm of a heartbeat. The soundtrack accompanying the work has a different ambience in every corner of the room: harmonic, scary, funny, and exciting. The installation’s set-up encourages audience members to lie down on the multitude of fingers and feel the extra heartbeat in their chests, syncing with the pulse of the music. The installation resembles, paradoxically, both a serene temple and a cold scientific lab, a hybrid in which the viewer-participant is encased in solitude that engenders a rethinking of interpersonal contact.

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Laura A Dima