No one can dispute the fact that people today are in need of genuine connection.
This weekend all the passers-by had an opportunity to connect with the Hugging Sculpture, created by young Croatian artist Vitar Drinković, at the intersection of Martićeva Street and Ratkajev Passage. The artist is known for his interactive pieces that are encouraging people to feel, think and act, reports journal.hr on June 19, 2016.
The concept of the sculpture meant for hugging has been developed and designed so that the person who is doing the hugging is activating the object with the pressure and leaning of their body. The sculpture then returns the hug and vibrates. In this way, there is a communication between the machine and the human, and thus the question arises whether a body is aware that it is embracing a machine and not a human and what kind of feelings does that evoke?
The artist pointed out on his blog that “at the present time of overload, hurry and scurry, rivalry and interpersonal alienation, it seems that we are increasingly in demand of some genuine connection and attention. Human behaviour is marked by the paradox of a profound split between introversion and the need to belong. The fear of the real world, as well as our intense dwelling into the virtual have led to the obliviousness of real communication.”
In Drinković’s words, “the idea is that the Hugging Sculpture is designed as a product that could be placed somewhere at the business premises so that employees could use it to balance their emotional needs, and it represents a partially comical and cynical commentary regarding today’s society”.
The Hugging Sculpture, an exceptional work of art, has been realized in collaboration with “uradisamARTLAB”.
