Take One: TOUCHING REALITY

A huge forefinger ‘travels’ over the horrifying picture of a wounded, bloodcovered body; with the help of a (equally huge) thumb, it stretches the image in order to obtain a closer view, points to some detail and pushes the image around; with a firm movement from right to left, it makes another picture of another mutilated body, dead or alive, appear. The finger repeats this right-to-left gesture several times – now faster, now slower – to reveal more brutal images. At one point, it reverses the direction of its gesture, from left to right, to return to the previous image. Then, it resumes its swift right-to-left movement. Shortly after, it arrests to zoom in again on a gruesome part of the picture.

This ‘hand travel’, which lasts about five minutes, was recorded in 2012 by the Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn. The video is entitled TOUCHING REALITY, but, in reality, the finger does not touch anything, that is, it does not touch any thing, any destroyed body of this brutal reality of war and murder. It merely glides over the surface of a smartphone or tablet; it touches a touchscreen without really touching what is on display. Furthermore, Hirschhorn reinforces the distance by deliberately opting for a non-interactive installation that excludes the spectator, gallery visitor, or museum-goer from engaging directly, tangibly, with the artwork. The touchscreen footage is displayed on a non-touchable projection surface or screen. The spectator, who contemplates this detached, non-engaged ‘hand travel’, is thus put into an equally non-engaging viewing position.