Matheus Montanari

The installation is composed of a plaster and wire hand that's connected to an Arduino board, making it touch-sensitive. There's a video projection in the room of a black screen with the title "how to say goodbye", as the interactor approaches their hand to the piece, the video starts to appear, as the interactor lets go of the hand the video fades to black again.

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The work proposes an interactive reflection on how to deal with farewell rituals, exploring the symbolic relationship of the hands and the touch.

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Accepting finitude is a difficult task. We create several daily rituals to deal with the absence of people or objects. Shaking hands is a social agreement, we say hello, shake hands, say goodbye, shake hands. In this way, we create linearity and delimit meetings and moments with others. However, when these memories are stored in our brain, this linearity does not always make sense, the touch itself becomes a memory codification. But as relationships begin to unfold, along with emotional involvement and memory creation, the interactions become more complex and profound. The touch gains a more important and present function, so following a protocol of goodbye no longer makes sense.