Project Recap No. 5 - Finger Run (a Tactile Folly)...

A design made by touch for touch, - all through computing based means. The design was realized through the use of a 'haptic interface', a device that allows one to 'feel' and sculpt objects on the computer screen through touch. The design was conceived as a touch based landscape, with its two halves designed to form a tactile topography for the various dimensions of exploratory touch(ing) – the fingertips, fingers, hand, forearm and arm for which the design provides various textures and routes (tactile follies) to explore and follow.

A Sensable 'Phantom' haptic interface, which allows one to 'feel' and manually sculpt the objects on the screen.

Initially inspired by studies of various roundabouts and intersections found on Google Earth, the piece explores the various layers of touch and the act of exploring something through the sense of touch.

Roundabouts and intersections from around the world, found on Google Earth, provided the initial inspiration for the design...

The routes are combined into an amalgamation of various tactile properties and sensations...

The design is 'read' by moving ones arm in a circular motion across the design's two adjacent panels' various textures and overlapping routes.

The two panels perform as a unified tactile topography, a touch based folly...

The final piece was made through Stereolithography, a form of three-dimensional printing (using two different resins for each half of the Finger-Run design), as well as through a CNC-milling machine.

The two Finger Run panels made through Stereolithography...

...And a few close-up details of the design's various textures, made through the sense of touch for the sense of touch, and all through fully digitized means...

Above and below - close-ups of the two Stereolithography finger Run panels...

A Kuwaiti gentleman examining the Finger Run panels during their exhibit at the la fontaine centre in Bahrain...

The pieces in this posting have been exhibited at the nous Gallery in London, la fontaine Centre of contemporary Art in Bahrain, and the Dar Al-Funoon Gallery in Kuwait. A rendition (CNC-milled) has also been exhibited as a part of the group exhibition titled Syn_athr(0)isis last year in Thessalonki, which will be again on display in Athens in June, 2009.