This year I participated at This Art Fair, an art fair which takes place every year in Amsterdam, which makes space for individual artists to show and sell their works without the intervention of galleries. The Dutch newspaper De Parool published a nice and well-researched review about my work in their article about the fair, among other projects shown and an interview with the This Art Fair’s new director. For the English-speaking people, I tried to translate the article written by Edo Dijksterhuis.

“One and a half meter lifestyle” was published in 2020 by the Society Our Language word of the year. ‘skin hunger’ was in second place. The lack of intimacy and touch during the beginning of the corona pandemic was so strong that it dominated the daily language. But in fact, quarantine and other corona measures are a trend that has already been going on for much longer. Due to digitization, we are living more and more through screens and by increasing the uncertainty about what is and is not permissible in physical contact there is discomfort which crept into our kisses, hugs and hugs.

 The Romanian artist Laura A. Dima, an alumnus of the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, responds to this with Future  Affair. It’s an installation which consists of two cabins, who are in between a telephone booth and a confessional. One contains a control panel and the other a ‘stroking machine’: three silicone fingers that are mechanically driven.  Once the person’s hand lies in the machine and has given permission, the fingers start stroking the arm and wrist, a place that is experienced sensually by many people. So does the need to become physical is solved, contact-free and safe from the danger of infection or unacceptable behaviour.

Curved fingers

 Future Affair is related to other work by Dima.  So she previously made the Finger Rub Rug, which consists of 1300 curved fingers and heating elements that feel real. And through her Consent Pods, sculptures full of electronics, two people can communicate through a heartbeat or breathing simulation.

 As with Future Affair, you can wonder about these works: how real touch through such a device actually feels like.  Do we touch each other or just the machine? Is the essence of the touch in the intention or in the authenticity of the experience? These are particularly interesting and relevant questions in an era in which more and more people spend more time in virtual space than in the physical world.”

Thank you for your wors, Edo Dijksterhuis.

I can’t start explaining how flattered I am to be mentioned in the same text as the new film by David Cronenberg, Crimes of the Future! – please go see the film if you haven’t already. I know it is quite obvious for most of the people who see my work, but I am a big Cronenberg fan. So this article comes as a very pleasant surprise, published in the NRC Dutch national newspaper in an “Opinion” piece by Joyce Roodnat. The writer recommends “Crimes of the Future” and the exhibition Come Alive as a new perspective on queer and inclusive sensuality, an exhibition that shows my piece “The Finger Rub Rug”. Highly recommended exhibition with really interesting immersive and interactive artworks. Also, I can’t express how grateful I am to be curated by Ine Gevers and Morgan Catalina in this show. – please go visit, it runs until 31st July with a finissage weekend full of activities!

Happy to find out that my work ‘Future Affair’ has been included in an article about Dutch Design Week ’21 all the way in China. The magazine is called Art and Design”(艺术与设计 in Chinese) and is a monthly cultural publication in China! I cant read it myself but I trust the write it did justice to the work! See the full article in the pictures attached!

Column by Jeroen Junte | DesignDigger.nl

“Designers ask the most existential question: not who, but what are we? Only with this self-examination can we protect our vulnerable bodies against viruses and other harmful invaders.”(…)

Of course, this preoccupation with our own bodies has also been fueled by digitalization. Far too often and for too long we sit in front of screens. Even sex and intimacy become devoid of physical contact. While this intimacy is (almost) as important as eating and sleeping. This is unequivocally confirmed by Laura A Dima’s Future Affair project in the Milk Factory. Visitors can touch each other without physical contact. A soft robotic arm with a very sophisticated push mechanism rubs a person’s arm just as long as another person presses a button. With the eyes closed it feels like a real caress. But if you look at the mechanical hand, the spell is immediately broken. Ultimately, we need not only our own body but also that of the other – no robot can change that (….)”