Technology

Social Experiment + ‘Human Camera’ = Odd Device Called ‘Touchy’

Touchy Social Experiment Offers Solution for the Dehumanizing of Physical Communication

(Photo: Touchy)

A new social experiment has been launched by a Hong Kong-based artist criticizing the false sense of human contact you receive on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. “Touchy” is so much more than just an odd helmet. It is a camera that only allows the wearer to see when the shutters open after a moment of continuous human contact.

The project by Eric Siu “focuses on the relationship of giving and receiving by literally transforming a human into a camera.”  On the concept website, it is explained that the onus for this experiment is to suggest a solution for the “dehumanizing of physical communication” that we now experience thanks to the Internet and other tech devices. The solution is “transforming the human being into a social device: a camera.” The project itself seeks to investigate how Touchy can improve social life, in the sense that it could capture important moments when the wearer is touched.

See how Touchy works:

As the Huffington Post explains, and you could see in the video, Touchy (a.k.a. the person wearing the helmet-camera) “gets a lot happier when he encounters another person willing to lend him a hand (literally).” The “human camera” is only activated when human touch is maintained for 10 seconds. At this point, a snapshot is taken of the scene in front of the wearer and then displayed on the screen of the digital camera for the person to view.

Touchy Social Experiment Offers Solution for the Dehumanizing of Physical Communication

(Photo: Touchy)

“Metaphorically, Touchy lives in an isolating cage built by the experience of total darkness, as if he is encountering the same sensuous withdrawal as some social disorder patients have. Your effortless touch is an action of giving vision and taking photos, which heals the anxiety and generates a playful interaction that invites people to have fun and reinterprets the way we use cameras,” the project site states.

Siu began creating prototype designs of the camera helmet in 2011 with the original idea coming to him in 2010. See more photos of Touchy here.

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