intercontinental caress

The "intercontinental caress" is a telematic performance between Paris and New York using the sense of touch. Thanks to a specific interface developed at the University of Technology of Compiègne (France) it is possible to touch the other through the optic fibers going across the ocean. The performance explores what is at stake when intimacy (skin, caress) is mixed with advanced technology (interfaces and wires, algorithms, …). Using a poetic performance language, the "intercontinental caress" aims at deconstructing the objective notions of time, space and body by introducing a wedge of desire and care.

"I do not like being touched. Touching me is only for intimi. I am not intimate with Fabrice. This new telematic intimate experience, this intercontinental caress makes me remember the The Big Kiss performance with Mark River in 2007. I hardly knew Mark, yet we kissed,we practiced a French Kiss for three hours. This is what one sees in  the video archives, but in fact we constructed the kiss together, we
co-created it. Our action was far from headlong, we were elsewhere – we co-designed an image of a kiss with our tongue. And in the meanwhile I remembered all the kisses, French or not, I ever gave, all the images ofkisses I knew. My tongue was animated by these memories and I felt the movement of Mark's tongue via proxy.
A story became.
How it will be this time? Is the touch interposed by pins going to touch me? Will my skin be sensitive enough for an exchange? What memories this experience will wake up in me? What new reality will we construct?

The performance will take place on the 7th of May :
at 2:30pm in New York (Fabrice Métais)
at the Old School, 233 Mott St (Soho), (as part of the New Museum’s festival of ideas )
and at 8:30pm in Paris (Annie Abrahams)
at la tapisserie,
13 rue Pétion (75011)

In New York, the performance is supported by the EYELEVEL BQE gallery

More information : http://fabricemetais.fr/aa/spip.php?article30
[img]http://aabrahams.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/visu_cable_ok1.png?w=400&h=265[/img]