TYLER CALKIN
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Social Haptics Learning Center
tags: object
2015-2024
Social Haptics Learning Center is a fictional institution dedicated to learning about social interaction. Couched in generic institutional and organizational language, SHLC describes a vague mission. It calls for participants with the promise of making a difference, without stating what difference might occur.
SHLC brands itself with images of people collaborating and holding geometric yellow objects. These models are the recorded output of a series of Percutaneous Model Building Workshops held in gallery, product development, and commercial team-building contexts. The workshops visualized and instantiated ephemeral micro-social space. Calkin created 3D models of these spaces, then constructed physical replicas. These replicas were then photographed and inserted into stock photography to form the generically official public face of the SHLC.
SHLC earnestly advocates for a rethinking and relearning of social space, proposes an absurd method for doing so, and questions the slick surface of “official” endeavors.