Guest lecture by artists/scientists Lancel & Maat: Can I Touch you online? 

FEB, 15th  |  10:00-11:30  |  Gerard van Haarlem Theaterzaal, HvA Jakoba Mulderhuis, Amsterdam

Artists/scientists Karen Lancel & Hermen Maat work at the intersection of art, science, and technology. Their sensitive and critical design of meeting places in digitally networked society has been presented internationally. In the artistic meeting places, they explore digital and hybrid social connections – and the cyborg experience of intimacy and isolation, body and identity, privacy and feeling together, of touching and feeling touched. During longterm Artistic Research processes, the meeting places are designed as “Artistic Social Labs” (ASL) with audience participants as “Co-researchers”. 

During the guest lecture, the artists will share their exciting works, Artistic Research approaches, design principles; and discuss different design choices and audience responses in the contexts of Seoul, New York, Berlin, London, Istanbul, Paris, Amsterdam, and Beijing. 

In addition, HyperTouching Shared Selfies, an interactive installation and ritual by Lancel/Maat will be on display until March 1st on the ground floor of the HvA Jakoba Mulderhuis. The installation invites two participants to meet via a streaming platform, an artistic assemblage of ZOOM technology, AI facial recognition software, touchscreens and Deep-Fake Selfie algorithms. In a poetic experience of online symbiosis, participants create HyperTouching selfies together. 

This event has been made possible by the Learning Community Urban Interaction DesignLectoraat Civic Interaction Design, and the Faculty of Digital Media and Creative Industry at the University of Applied Sciences Amsterdam.