Week 6 Blog: Touch, Body Heat, and Power Dynamics—Dissecting Intimacy in a Bar  

 ‘When the Wine Glass Becomes a Scalpel: A Curatorial Experiment on Power and Technology’

1. Theoretical Critique: The “Sweet Trap” of Participatory Art

Contemporary art often celebrates “audience participation,” but is this participation truly liberating? Claire Bishop warns in ‘Artificial Hells’: “Participatory art may shift power from the curator to the audience, but the audience does not gain real freedom—they are simply entangled in a new chain of exploitation.” My exhibition seeks to expose this contradiction:

• The Paradox of the Thermochromic Wine Glass:

When viewers activate text fragments from Sophie Calle’s breakup letters by warming the glass with their hands, they appear to control the narrative. In reality, they are bound by technology—they must keep gripping the glass to read, mirroring the forced postures in intimate relationships.

> “This is not liberation, but a meticulously designed power game—technology becomes the new ‘curator,’ and the audience becomes complicit through the expenditure of body heat.”

2. The Truth About Touch: Sandpaper, Tape, and the Demystification of Bourriaud

Nicolas Bourriaud’s Relational Aesthetics claims that tactile interactions can repair social fractures. My exhibition thrusts this theory into a brutal physical experiment. Through a gradient of violence in sandpaper and the adhesive traps of tape, audiences are forced to confront the undercurrents of power within intimacy.

• Installation Design: Sandpaper Matrix and Adhesive Traps

The Topography of Power in Sandpaper:

The bar’s central table is divided into four quadrants, each covered with sandpaper of varying grits:

1. 80-grit coarse sandpaper: Symbolizes the power struggles of early relationships (e.g., arguments, clashes of values), leaving visible abrasions on the skin.
2. 400-grit fine sandpaper: Metaphorizes the subtle control in long-term relationships (e.g., emotional blackmail), delivering lingering but less obvious pain.

Provocative text is painted in white along the table’s edge:

“Place your hand on the table for at least 10 seconds to experience a microcosm of intimacy.”

The Allegory of Adhesion in Tape:

Wide transparent tape (sticky side up) is randomly applied over the sandpaper, creating a “honey trap.”

When viewers attempt to withdraw their hands, the tape’s adhesive resistance triggers stinging pain, mimicking the cost of dependency and escape in relationships.

Auditory Feedback System:

A smartphone running the TouchOSC app is hidden beneath the table. When pressure exceeds a threshold, it triggers the bar’s speakers to play prerecorded conflict sounds (e.g., slamming doors, muffled sobs).

• Theoretical Critique: Touch as an Instrument of Power

Deconstructing Bourriaud’s Utopia:

“Bourriaud romanticizes touch as ‘an egalitarian bond,’ but the sandpaper proves otherwise—touch is a vector of power. It can soothe, but it can also lacerate. When audiences jerk their hands away in pain, they physically negate the naive presuppositions of relational aesthetics.”

Bridging Claire Bishop’s Antagonistic Participation:

“The tape’s cycle of adhesion and ‘Tear’ mirrors Bishop’s notion of ‘antagonistic participation’—viewers awaken through discomfort, rejecting the false harmony imposed by art.”

3. Technological Ethics: Fading Body Heat and Data Self-Destruction

Inspired by classmate San Zhang’s ‘Undercover Angel’ (Fig. 1), which uses a felt heart pressed to trigger audio, I questioned: How can tactile interactions avoid becoming data exploitation? My answer: make technology self-destruct.

• Thermochromic Veil: Responses written by viewers in the anonymous dialogue booth vanish within two hours as body heat dissipates—like transient promises in relationships.
• Wooclap Data Suicide: Keywords like “control” or “betrayal” submitted by viewers are deleted after 24 hours, leaving only abstract color blocks—refusing to let emotions become permanent archives.

4. Participation Mechanics: From Empathy to Confrontation

A tiered system guides viewers from passive observation to active intervention:

Critical Design Statement:

> “We deliberately impose participation thresholds: only those who finish ‘Frida’s Vein’ (Tier 2) receive Wooclap QR codes; only keyword contributors access the dialogue booth (Tier 3). This ‘gradual exposure’ mechanism embodies Bishop’s ‘conflict-driven participation’—intimacy is never a free amusement park.”

• Localized “Free Hugs” Performance:

A “Stranger Hug Timer” at the bar entrance rewards 30-second hugs with a “Klimt’s Gold” cocktail. Participants sign agreements allowing infrared thermal imaging of their hugs, abstracted into color blocks projected overhead.

5. Course Integration: From Adam’s Lecture to Bar Guerrilla Tactics

Adam Lewis-Jacobs’ emphasis on the “temporary ethics” of artist-run spaces directly influenced my design:

• The Bar as a Temporary Battleground: The exhibition embraces impermanence—thermochromic text, fading body heat, and self-destructing data all count down to oblivion.
• Subverting Commercial Space: The opulent “Klimt’s Gold” cocktail hides dissolving fragments of Calle’s letters—alcohol is the sugar coating, technology is the bullet.

References

Bishop, Claire. Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. London: Verso Books, 2023.

Bourriaud, Nicolas. Relational Aesthetics. Dijon: Les Presses du Réel, 2020.

Kelley, Mike. Foul Perfection: Essays and Criticism. Edited by John C. Welchman. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003.

Zhang, San. Undercover Angel. 2025. Mixed media soft sculpture. Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Edinburgh.

Week 6 Post / Zihan Fu / Curating (2024-2025)[SEM2] by is licensed under a