“Tikka’s At Hand has the effect of subverting the ‘position of the individual as subject being constructed, or produced through the urban space in relation to others’ (Wodiczco and Ferguson, 1992) which is the normal experience of metro travel – represented in the Helsinki-Paris: regards narratifs sur le design urbain multiscreen video works; At Hand ‘disrupts the continuous process of reproducing the individual in space’ by making videographic representations of body parts: hands – pairs of hands, already an icon of communication – and inserting them into the urban space of the advertising vitrine – not advertising a product or commodity, but gesturing communication: reminding the participant viewer, in the midst of – indeed employing – urban ‘miniaturisation’ (Baudrillard, 1983), that observation, attention and tactility can always make human communication meaningful.”
Maureen Thomas (Senior Research Fellow, Screen Media and Cultures, Churchill College, University of Cambridge; Senior Research Associate, Digital Studio for Research in Design, Visualisation and Communication, Dept of Architecture, University of Cambridge). The article forthcoming.
References:
Baudrillard, Jean. 1983, translated by John Johnston. ‘The Ecstasy of Communication’ pp. 125 – 138 in Foster, Hal (ed.). The Anti-aesthetic. Port Townsend: Washington Bay Press.
Wodiczco, Krzysztof and Ferguson, Bruce W. 1992. ‘A Conversation with Krzysztof Wodiczco’, 47-66 in Krzysztof Wodiczco: Instruments, Projections, Vehicles, Barcelona:Fundació Antoni Tàpies quoted in Kaye, Nick. 2000 (digitally reprinted 2008). Site Specific Art: performance, place and documentation. Oxford & New York: Routledge.