Human Fabric Trilogy - The Haptics of Seeing I

The piece questions the state of our sensory experience in a world where science has begun to quantify and deconstruct touch, asking what role contemporary art can play in this rapidly changing landscape. Are we all becoming virtualized beings, with our sensual abilities reduced to mere inputs for technological advancement?

In The Haptics of Seeing I, the work draws attention to the stark contrast between the everyday struggles of navigating a world altered by pandemic fears, and the desire for human connection. This is the contemporary hatpics experience that we are sensing.

“As someone who grew up in Yonghe, Taiwan, I understand the implications of a 1.5-meter social distancing factor all too wonderful. In a densely populated area, social distancing is a crucial act of kindness. But as you swipe through your smartphone on the street, you cannot help but feel the sense of distance it creates. The screen has become a barrier between you and the world, reducing touch to a blank, emotionless experience. No matter what you consume through it, the screen under your thumb always feels the same. What does your touch truly connect to? Who do you touch when you touch the screen?”

In 'The Haptics of Seeing II', This work aims to create a different form of collaboration between art and science, based on sensory research, to develop a prototype for embodied practice and to discuss the possibilities of reinterpreting body-domination and ownership through the senses.

The work examines different massage techniques to address the delegated performances of individual and collective body boundaries, in the flow state between the body and the mind. The classical haptics experience should support who we are and where we are as a fundamental sensation.

The artist seeks to question the social practices developed under the hegemony of the eye, by examining the relationship between touch and vision through massage. The Cifang Care Center serves as a co-creation base, providing a temporary, intimate, and vulnerable artistic arena. Participants and the artist enter a pure state of service and being served, creating a vast spiritual space through a shared tactile experience. Through artistic expression, sensory stimulation, and bodily awareness, the work attempts to argue and re-examine touch and vision in the context of cognitive neuroscience, freely creating and weaving together memories and reality to form a different identity.

Through their participation in the same work, the participating artists engage in a dialogue that synchronizes their consciousness and emotions, playing with and revisiting many intangible life experiences between the output of creation and the input of the senses. Gradually, within the group, they construct their own cross-body aesthetic context.

This statement highlights the direct connection between our perception and physical experience. Do we first see and then touch, or touch before we see? Are we fully aware of what we see? How do we experience our reactions to sensory stimulation?

In The Haptics of Seeing III continues to raise questions about the tactile body in visual states such as massage and dance through the practice of the ancient touch tradition of massage, as well as the vocabulary used in cognitive neuroscience research tools and frameworks. Is our perception of the environment dominated by vision or haptic sensation? How will haptic predictions become the predominant sense in our sensory landscape?

Most of our knowledge transfer and documentation revolve around the visual body, where we receive knowledge through visual sensory receptors and comprehend it. There is a complex interweaving relationship between vision, touch, and other perception, like the existence of a "disappearing body," or the tactile body, only surfacing when we are conscious of both visual and tactile sensations at the same time. This ghost body formed by the overlapping of vision, touch, and interoceptiveness is temporarily named the "third body" by the artist.

How is this third body depicted? How is it generated? How is it expressed? How does it form between the individual life experience and the external historical social context of the subject? How does the pulse of time and space leave a unique mark on this third body? And if the third body of each existing individual is unique, how do the third bodies of different individuals interact and communicate, feeling each other's presence? Through the introduction of the visual tactile body and installations, our perceptual experience is orchestrated. By breaking down our understanding of the inherent ways of the body, this work attempts to explore the possibilities of reconstructing our perceptual space starting from touch, within the existing cognition and identity.

這句話，示現了我們知覺與身體經驗的直接連接，我們到底是先觀看爾後觸及，或先觸及才觀看？我們是否全然覺知我們所看見的？我們是如何經驗我們對於感官刺激後的反應？

此次創作延續透過實踐古老的觸覺實務─按摩，提問觸覺身體在按摩和舞蹈等視覺狀態，以及在認知神經研究工具與架構中的語彙。知識傳遞與紀錄圍繞著視覺身體開展，我們以視覺感官受器接獲知識並進行理解。視覺、觸覺與感知間存在多重交纏的關係，其中存在一「消失的身體」，也就是觸感身體，僅有在我們同時意識視覺與觸覺感受時浮現。而這個視覺、觸覺與內在觸覺（感知意識）形成觸感交疊的抽象身體，我們暫時以「第三身體」命名。

這個第三身體樣貌如何描繪？如何產生？如何吐納？如何在主體個人生命經驗及外部歷史社會脈絡間形成？時間與空間的脈動如何在此第三身體上留下獨特痕跡？而如果每個存在個體的「第三身體」為其獨有，不同存在個體間的「第三身體」又如何互動與對話，共感彼此存在？透過引介視覺中的觸覺身體與裝置，調度我們的感知經驗。將我們理解身體固有的方式打破，試圖從觸覺出發，探問在既有的認知、身份中，重構我們感知空間的可能。

Wang Yung An focuses her research in the context of touch cognitive mechanisms, while expanding her artistic approach in performance and visual language. With an emphasis on deducing inner-material dynamics under the skin, Wang has been developing a touch score/script system to investigate biopolitics via varying body codes, boundaries and interoceptive feelings. Her work reflects on the gaps between human and non-human life. Her creative propositions question the haptics of seeing, as well as how skin can act as a thinking organ.

Education

2014　 National Taiwan University of Arts, B.F.A. in Fine Art
2023　National Central University, M.S. in Cognitive Neuroscience

PERFORMANCE (Selected)

2022    Performance, Asymmetric Utopia, Industrial Technology Research Institute(ITRI), la nuit blanche, Taipei, Taiwan

2021    Performance, The quilt gets out of the bridge while Su Yi-Shi is..., Duck Art Studio, Thinkers Studio, Taipei, Taiwan

2020    Performance, Human Fabric Trilogy - The Haptics of Seeing III, Taipei Fringe Festival, Nadou Theatre, Taipei, Taiwan

2020    Performance, Human Fabric Trilogy - The Haptics of Seeing I, Florāotu, Blueprint Culture & Creative Park, Tainan, Taiwan

2017    Performance, Vimprodaco - Vienna improvisations dance company :: 7 TIMES 7 TWO ::, Vienna City, Vienna, Austria

EXHIBITION (Selected)

2020    Human Fabric Trilogy - The Haptics of Seeing II, Palace Museum, C-Lab, Taipei, Taiwan

2017    Mosaika collaborative, Mosaika, Montreal, Canada

2017    Alter experiences, Guelph, Canada

2014    Floating frequency, URS21 Chung Shan Creative Hub, Taipei, Taiwan

2014    Lifestyle & art, Fujian, China

2014    Hualien Culture & Creative Art,  Hualien cultural creative industries park, Hualien, Taiwan

2013    Magic Narrow People, Longshan Temple Culture Plaza, Taipei, Taiwan

2012    Pluto is not a planet, New Taipei City Arts Center, New Taipei city, Taiwan

2012    Tides, Duxing Military dependents' village Cultural Park, Penghu, Taiwan

2011    Green Zone, Beitou Public Assembly Hall, Taipei, Taiwan

RESIDENCIES

2022　 Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Hsinchu, Taiwan

2012    Duxing Military dependents' village Cultural Park, Penghu, Taiwan

WORKSHOP, TALKS and RESEARCH

2023　Academic Writing, The Changes in EEG Theta Oscillation Induced by Affective Touch: Comparing Brush Stroke, Hand Stroke, and Massage-like Tapping, Researcher, Human Memory & Cognitive Electrophysiology Laboratory. 

2022　Workshop, Seven Bodies & the Talking Sea, Moss Piglets, The Cultural Taiwan Foundation. Chiang Mai, Thailand.

2021    Online Workshop, Seven Bodies & the Talking Sea, Moss Piglets, The Cultural Taiwan Foundation

PUBLIC ART

2015　Artistic Design, Under the melon shed, Artist, DADA Art, Chaozhou Train Station, Pingtung, Taiwan

2017　Mosaicist, Chuck Close- Subway Portraits, Mosaika, New York, USA.

2018　Mosaicist, Stephen Andrews- a part of/ apart from, Mosaika, Paris, France

2018　Mosaicist, Yoko Ono- Sky (72nd Street Station), Mosaika, New York, USA.

2018　Mosaicist, Dixie Friend Gay - Expanding and Collapsing, Mosaika, Cheney WA, USA.