Please touch

Most of my projects investigate user-system agency relationships.

What is interaction? What happens when the interactor is immersed in the space of the installation project? What does he see? What control does the project have over the interactor? What control does the interactor have over the project? My research has been developing in an indefatigable search for answers to these questions. That always leads to other questions in an infinite path of bifurcations made real in the form of installations, objects, and more.

The projects provide a profound physical-emotional experience, driven by audience participation, in situations of surprise and disorientation, creating a tension between reality and image. In this context, the visitor transforms into his or her own observer, in the limit (infinite) of not being identifiable. However, there are times and moments influencing relations which demand presence; individuals are the sole bearers of existence for the intervention. These effects emerge when we least expect them, as if the reality of our perception has eluded us. This framework suggests a reversibility of gazes: I observe it, and it observes me. The spectator and the image become one. I exist outside while simultaneously being inside. This perspective defines our entire experience, where what we see reveals what sees us.

The artworks selected here reveal the space as reframed by the interfaces proposed, suggesting new layers of visualizations for banal situations of our daily life.

The works may need several items to be finished and then shown to the public; some of them use programming, interfaces, video, while others, like re.turn, use only a laser cut, or spin, which is a low-tech object that plays with what is happening in real life.

look

https://www.raquelkogan.com/olhar

look is an interactive audio-video installation that constructs a story in real time. It is a visual report of all the interactors passing by and engaging with the installation, which is continually enhanced and altered through this process. In this audio video installation, interaction is simply a gaze that transforms into something to be observed. The anticipation of a gaze and witnessing something forms its dialogue.

The interactor is invited to look, to peek at a small built-in device, but he or she sees absolutely nothing. However, this glimpse is captured in a sequence of photos and projected as a video, one next to the other, forming the content of the installation, which is constantly modified to accommodate new data captured (each new video is shown in the projection at a larger size for easy recognition and is then displayed sequentially, numbered by order of arrival in a smaller size). Inside the image-capturing device, there is a digital interface connected to a computer that manages this vast data bank created in real-time, along with the sound that corresponds with the look, placing the visitor in accordance with his or her order of arrival.

A visual sound diary of the people who were there and interacted with the installation.

#look

https://www.raquelkogan.com/hashtagolhar

This project is an online version of the interactive installation look. In this version, the mechanism for capturing “the eye looking” is on mobile devices; to view and interact with it being accessible by internet.

A digital mural composed of the eyes of the interactors will be showcased on the #look website. Visitors will initially encounter this mosaic of perspectives created by videos from other participants. Each contribution will be shared in accordance with the guidelines for capturing a video. When a visitor chooses to engage with the artwork, they must log in; then the website will enable them to activate their camera to create a video and upload it to the digital wall. This version of the digital mural will be available online via cloud storage, accessible from anywhere in the world on any internet-connected device, including in exhibition spaces.

re.turn

https://www.raquelkogan.com/volver

Is an interactive installation that gives meaning to past vestiges that are not yours, but rather memories and fragments of others. “To never again forget” makes visual and emotional details possible without ever having seen or lived them before, allowing us to relive feelings and sensations only heard described. It revolves, stirs, returns, brings back, regresses, and ultimately leads us to say or do something in response. What is the possible answer? To write or to depict through walking this metaphor of comings and goings, of leaving and not returning; a whole without an image, a description of the unimaginable, a time that doesn’t last. How can we give meaning to all this? Writing, with all its power, can handle it, even when the junction of these words seems almost random, like told and retold cropped memories.

Installation description

It features a wooden square situated in the centre of the exhibit space, filled with white marble powder. The marble can capture the footprints made by pre-prepared soles with words inscribed on them, attached to the shoes of the participants. These “over-soles” hang on the wall, and the interactor chooses two words: one for the left foot and another for the right. They then place these over their own shoe soles with rubber bands and walk on the floor, imprinting the chosen words, which will blend with the “steps” of other visitors. The footprints register the selected words, creating a collective meaning or not, while always preserving the individual meaning of each word in the footprints.

spin

https://www.raquelkogan.com/spin

It is a chromed interactive object with an adjustable height that is attached to the ceiling, resembling a periscope. Through it, visitors can observe the space in a panoramic and mirrored view. Physically manipulating the work in real time, it flips what is seen upside down, so that what comes from the left now appears on the right, and vice versa.

Recommended citation: KOGAN, Raquel. Please touch. Mosaic [online], April 2025, no. 203. ISSN: 1696-3296. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7238/m.n203.2504