Self-portrait and Haptic Interface Design Workshop

Since I started working on Haptic Interface Design and especially on the field research into the haptic quality hidden in various textures, my digital camera has been working exactly as my third eye: it automatically focuses on and catch what I do not see exactly with my two naked eyes but I feel by touching, hearing, smelling or by instinct.

Actually, many of the haptic facts around me are not clearly visible, sometimes because the textures are too small or too big or too vague, or sometimes because of the prejudices in my brain, which are directly connected to my eyes. So, I let the pure eye of my digital camera catch the figure of “something”, yet to reveal the figure of the truth, even without looking through the view finder by myself. Then afterwards, I discover the miraculous truth of the world, observing the details of the digitalized images in surprise by zooming in or out, brightening or darkening, sharpening or highlighting with the greatest care.

At Estonian Academy of Arts, I conducted since 2006 several workshops of Haptic Interface Design together with total 26 students of various nationalities. We strolled around in forests, the seaside, as well as the city of Tallinn in the mid-summer and in the mid-winter of -15 C° under the highest sky of Estonia. We just sharpened our senses and continued to release the shutter of our cameras just trusting our instinct and intuition to reveal something hidden there in the very moment of the shot. Then, we analyzed, edited and named the haptic facts captured.
The series of images presented here by Estonian Academy of Arts has been mostly realized by the team of Haptic Interface Design workshop during the field research, so to tell the overlooked truth of Estonia to the readers of illywords.

COOPERATORS
Prof. Martin Pärn EAA Product design, Prof. Mare Kelpman EAA Textile design

STUDENTS
Aili Aamisepp Estonia, Kirill Akakjev Estonia, Alexandra Breitenfeldt Germany, Tom Duggan England, Anna-Maria Einla Estonia, Irina Gross Estonia, Lungruen Jung Taiwan, Kadri Klampe Estonia, Merilin Kruusel Estonia, Triin Kuusler Estonia, Veiko Liis Estonia, Virge Loo Estonia, Indrek Mälton Estonia, Liina-Kai Raivet Estonia, Anna Roomet Estonia, Heiki Reinmann Estonia, Stefanie Sandhäugl Austria, Andrea Selent Germany, Lilian Sokolova Estonia, Jan Stefl Czech Republic, Pent Talvet Estonia, Marko Uibo Estonia, Ingela Viks Estonia, Triin Voss Estonia, Erle Võsa-Tangsoo Estonia, Nadine Wietlisbac Switzerland