Touch Glass | Group Exhibition
Touch Glass’s title plays with the phrase “Touch Grass”, recently popularised as a playful insult online to encourage the target to go outside and regain touch with the natural world and their “common-sense” following too much time on social media. The exhibition instead encourages audiences to “lock in” with work exploring how technology mediates how we see the world and reflect on our place within it. Across the medium of photography, painting, performance and site-specific installation, the show addresses the “new normal” of the 2020s through a direct interrogation of ongoing crises around housing, artificial intelligence and social media content.
On the 24th of September, there will be a private view opening, open to all, with refreshments and a live activation of Josh Wirz’s “I’m Here, Soft & Haptic”, a new commission for the exhibition with Wirz appearing as a ghostly presence behind a two way mirror challenging audiences to look back. Vita Lerche will also present a live performance of “Scanner Backpack”, a project developed through her recent residency at Far Out East Gallery, documenting the world and visitors to the exhibition through the glass of the body-mounted scanner.
On Saturday the 5th of October, to mark the exhibition’s closing, R&DShow&Tell will invite artists and audience members alike to share the screen of their personal device and demonstrate how they conduct research and “waste time on the internet” in a guided question and answer session. There will also be a performance of “Filibuster” by Josh Wirz with the performer as a buttoned-up spokesperson reading from an autocue built on an endless automatically generated supply of corporate copywriting.
In addition, at 3pm on Sundays (29/9, 6/10), there will be a drop in guided tour of the exhibition and discussion led by the curator. Additional questions should be made to camcclellan8142@gmail.com
