Artist  Statement

“I am a human camera. If you touch me, my shutters open and I take a photo!” Touchy is a wearable device that literally transforms a human being into a functioning camera. The wearer is deprived of sight until his/her skin is touched; this causes the shutters in front of the eyepieces to open, restoring the wearer’s vision, and when the physical contact is maintained for 10 seconds, the camera takes a ‘Touch-Snap’ which is displayed on the device’s LCD. Touchy is devised to encourage offline communication through touch, eye contact and photography (historically utilised to share valuable life memories and emotions). The Touch-Snaps remind us of the ephemeral richness of togetherness, and challenge the disembodying nature of social media, which dehumanises physical contact.
Want to meet Touchy? Be photographed and become his friend? You can meet him online at facebook.com/touchycamera   touchtouchy.com

• Eric Siu is a Hong Kong new media artist who has a broad interest in device art, interactive art, kinetics, installation, video and animation. He is currently based in Tokyo and works as a creative director for Great Works Tokyo advertising agency. He worked as a resident artist at the Ishikawa Oku Laboratory of the University of Tokyo for two years after receiving his MFA from the Department of Design Media Arts at UCLA in 2010. Before that, he completed a 12-month cultural exchange and research project in the United States funded by the Asian Cultural Council. His video art and multi-media works have been shown both locally and internationally including in the USA, Australia, Japan, Korea, Germany and Poland. He has exhibited in media art festivals including FILE, Transmediale, EMAF, WRO, SIGGRAPH Asia, ISEA and Microwave. His video short Sliding Whites received an honorable mention from the WRO 05, 11th International Media Art Biennale, Wroclaw, Poland. His recent project Touchy has been featured in various media such as Neural, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Discovery News and the Creators Project. Since 2008 he has served as a board member of Videotage, Hong Kong.