Cezara Carla Pădurean | Shapes at First Touch. Tactile-Visual Performance

Cezara Carla Pădurean, PhD student of the Faculty of Arts and Design, has been concerned with multisensory design since her undergraduate studies. She is the author of the "Real transposed in the dark" project, dedicated to blind people, a concept whose aim was to facilitate their interaction with the public space, using cards for guidance.

Starting from these previous concerns, but also from the suggestions coming from the art of Paul Neagu (the series of Tactile Objects made at the end of the 60s and the beginning of the 70s), Cezara proposed an insert in the exhibition "Hyphen between then and now" an multisensory and artistic experience. "Shapes at first touch. Tactile-visual performance" combines kinesthetic and artistic elements to bring to the fore the process of "reading" the cards by hand and transforming the perceived shape into a sketch. Participants were invited to touch and explore the guide cards, created through 3D printing technology. Fine details and an ergonomic shape allow identification of obstacles and landmarks.

Participants were invited to use their imagination to create a quick sketch of the public space in Timișoara, based on what they felt touching the cards. The performer encouraged them to imagine what those streets, squares and buildings might look like, while guiding them through the process of putting the form on paper.