Punish the artist (let’s go human in 14 days)

Alex Korolkov

Description:

The project consists of  2 interactive components:

- a punching bag (pear) equipped with a FlexiForce sensor to measure the strength of a punch on the scale from 1 to 14

- a projector with 14 images representing the “healing evolution of the artist’s face” after an attack. It took 14 days to become “human” again. 

The project explores the ambiguity of the notion of being and looking “human” in the context of victim-perpetrator, esthetical-ethical and public-private domains. 

Since interaction with users is one of the most important parts of the project, it automatically forces them to define a border between play and abuse. To what extent will you treat your interaction with the piece as play as opposed to an action,  inflicting harm on a human being ( or just images?) 

The project is, also, meant to reveal that in majority of cases we play both contrasting parts : the attacker and the victim depending on situational and interpersonal contexts. Usually, we identify ourselves with only one role. The public-private notions are questioned in “contemporary violence suppressants”, which are constructing a better law-abiding society. In majority of cases, a small twist in situational and interpersonal contexts can reverse the whole picture. 

The aspect of reversing the sequence of events gives the project one more time-related dimension: the images representing the healing process originally, are presented as stages linked to the strength of a punch in the project.