Hands. Deformed and mutated, fingers are added or subtracted with bones that bend strangely or palms that grow and shrink in time with one’s breathing. It is hard for one to imagine our hands in these different forms, but the Augmented Hand Series promises its audiences exactly that experience of transformation.
Contemporary artists, Golan Levin, Chris Sugrue and Kyle McDonald’s real time, interactive software systems allow its users to see for themselves what it might be like to have hands that are a little less like their own. The system appears to be simple, consisting of a box into which one can put their hand in and a touchscreen that allows participants to select a transformation from about twenty different options. The experience is rather uncanny, as audiences are forced to encounter an image that is both familiar and strange at the same time.
This transformation of a hand is so fascinating as it reignites a sense of wonder and exploration, while also creating a sense of disturbance. We use our hands to do so many things. What would it be like if we had meandering fingers? Or if all our fingers were made the same length. How would we renegotiate our relationship with the objects and the worlds around us?
