Touch Type

(Marcus)

A lecture and discussion 
by artist Stephen Hobbs and NMU Adjunct Professor Marcus Neustetter
 
Stephen Hobbs and Marcus Neustetter reflect on two decades of their Trinity Session project work that shifts perceptions of space and place through socially engaged actions in public space using video and light as a core medium.
 
Central to many of their projects is an emphasis on contingency, local conditions and a heightened awareness of digital divides across differing communities and sites.  Set against the hyper-mechanical, virtual and increasingly ‘artificial’ worlds of exchange we now inhabit, Hobbs and Neustetter will reflect on the meaning and value of maintaining a connection to the physical world and lived experience at the 1:1 scale; arguing for a more balanced ecosystem of exchange, between artistic intelligence and the new digital tools we have at our disposal today, in pursuit of a heightened Digital Humanism.
 
The lecture will be followed by a participatory-design workshop that will manifest an improvised projection on the facade of the Bird Street Gallery. 
 
This activity informs part of the broader research projects:  

Hand-Code supported by the Embassy of Austria in South Africa, and the Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Public Service and Sports of the Republic of Austria.

Pushing the Boundaries (expandingpossibilities.org), hosted at the Dept of Philosophy of the University of Vienna, supported by the John Templeton Foundation (JTF). 

The Responsive Placemaking consortium, founding members of the EIT Creative and Culture program, EU.