Impacts of Touch
Impacts of Touch is a participatory performance with a complimentary website to create social awareness about the unpleasant impacts of social touch. The project aims to show touchers what destructive impact their instant, volatile touch might create and encourage them to reconsider and be more careful about their actions in the future.
Normally, touch is an instant and invisible act that is supposed to end when the action stops. However, I had a chance to observe that those instant touches might leave deeper impacts on people than we may know or hear. This project focuses on the unpleasant social touch with a stranger or acquaintance. The performance’s main purpose is to attract attention. That is why the performance takes place at outdoor public spaces with participants who are passers-by strangers. Participants have to put a hand-mark by charcoal on the performer’s body which makes instant touch visible and tangible. Before or during the performance, there is no information about the main purpose of the project to maintain an honest reaction from the participants while they touch the performer. After participation, they would have to scan the QR code that directs them to the supporting website. The website opens with a striking question, followed by unpleasant touch stories.
While I was talking with people to collect stories, collaborators' comfort and privacy were one of the most important points for me. Most of the stories take place in outdoor public settings in mostly daily, casual moments hard to recognize by an outsider. I chose the stories that would be most familiar to people so that the audience can experience some common ground, resonating with their own experiences. The main purpose is to show that even these kinds of small touches have the potential to create longer-lasting harsh impacts.
Secondly, when it comes to unpleasant touch, there should not be any distinction between people because there is no age, sex, gender, or culture that is not affected by this. Therefore, it was important to maintain diversity and balance when making story decisions and during shooting...
Follow the link for more stories https://kayaaslanozge.wixsite.com/impactsoftouch