It’s interesting to think about human contact and what that means several years into Covid. We are touch deprived, but also we don’t want to die…a familiar sentiment from the arrival of the AIDS virus. Technology seems to also push us further and further apart so it is fertile ground for artists explore how these aspects of life intersect.
Crash Kiss, by artist Rollin Leonard, combines a real live event where the participants are in proximity, but it’s up to the computer to create touch. The result is a terrible mashup of nearest points smashed together. It underlines what remains impossible and a hoax of the digital age: that there is any other path to human connection other than human connection.