HANDY: Yorkshire Art Space: 23 – 27 September 2023

Handy (1)

What is touched when we encounter touchscreens?

Our relationship with technology, particularly smartphones, resonates through the entirety of our senses and bodies. The manner of carriage, grip, and even the specific regions of skin contact exert influence. Embedded within the concept of Screen Time lies a comprehension of fragmented and repeated periods of attention as a performative touch on the sleek glass surface.

The iPhone metamorphoses into a reflective conduit of human intra-action—an embodiment of life’s fluctuations over the course of a day. The diurnal interplay of light extends between the critique and contemplation on the lasting endurance of smartphone devices. The concept finds its nexus in the Cascade experiment by A. Fulton in 1989. The nervous body relates to unresponsive wasted technology, undressed it reveals the veneer of technological materiality in fragments.

The Yorkshire Art Space Sculpture Terrace transforms into an outdoor space for contemplation amid our technologically and ocular-centric era. This physical remoteness from a familiar, intimate object is governed by both temporal constraints and the atmospheric changes. These encountered remnants are no longer exclusively subject to human influence; they stand exposed to ecological and environmental forces.

(1) Handy is the German term for a smartphone, denoting the handheld device that has become an integral part of our daily lives. It accompanied me between Sheffield and Vienna, the German word denotes its being perpetually accessible, ready to be grasped at any given moment.

For more information and to book a ticket please visit Eventbrite.

Marika Grasso is an artist PhD candidate at Sheffield Hallam funded by L4L Lab4Living, Royal Collage of Art, Central Saint Martin London and Research England. Her approach is material practice-based approach, to explore neuroaesthetics and tactile-technology relationships. Her work Beyond Touchscreens was exhibited at the CHI University of Bolzano and Stanley Gallery, Kingston. She took part in Activism Neuroaesthetics in Cognitive Capitalism organised by SFSIA. Her work TS#25 was exhibited in Conversations in Practic/se at YAS.

 

@marikajasminegrasso