FILE CURITIBA 2014 – Installation

Ricardo Barreto & Maria Hsu – Martela

Abstract:
Tactila is an art form whose medium is the sense of touch which is independent from the all the other ones and has its own intelligence, imagination, memory, perception, and sensation. It is well known that vision and sound have hegemony in arts and in other disciplines. Tactila takes place in time and, therefore, can be recorded and have various forms of notation for subsequent executions. That is why its development became possible only now, thanks to mechatronic and robotic systems which are compatible with machine languages.
The creation of tactile works involves a composition, which can be made through handmade notation and played on a keyboard or directly on the computer of the tactile machine (robot).
Tactile machines can present numerous tactile possibilities through points, vectors, and textures with varying rhythms and intensities, and be run in different extensions and locations of our body.
The first tactile machine is called “Martela”. It is a tactile robot comprised of 27 engines subdivided into three squares (3 x 3), i.e., each square has 9 engines. Each engine corresponds to a matrix point, so we have 27 tactile units that allow to touch the user’s body with various intensities.
Points, vectors, and textures, each one of them in different rhythms, correspond to movements of the touches on the body which can be single or multiple and in different directions, what may create agreeable or conflicting situations. The composition involves sensory relations that will be interpreted later by the user’s sensibility, and this fruition, as in all forms of art, improves with further experience and research.

Biography:
Maria Hsu has dedicated herself to visual arts using several mediums: painting, photo and digital art, starting from 2000, after she had practice as a medical doctor. She presented several digital artworks such as TransEstruturas, Charles in London, Nietzsche – the First Avator and feelMe in co-authorship with Ricardo Barreto.
Ricardo Barreto is both an artist and a philosopher. Active in the cultural scene, he works with performances, installations and videos. He has been dedicated to digitalization since the nineties. He has also taken part in several national and international exhibitions such as: XXV Biennial of São Paulo in 2002; Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) London – Web 3D Art 2002, among others. He presented the digital installations Charles in London, Nietzsche – the First Avator and feelMe in co-authorship with Maria Hsu. He also conceived and organizes together with Paula Perissinotto the FILE – Electronic Language International Festival.

Technical Team
Daniel Moori is a programmer and a mechatronic developer.
Bruno Zanotti is an electronic developer.