Moritz NEUMÜLLER (ArteConTacto)

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Moritz NEUMÜLLER (ArteConTacto)

Participating Project	Research Residency Program
Activity Based	Linz, Austria / Barcelona
City / Place stayed	Tokyo
Period	2024.2 - 2024.3

Purpose of the residency

I will conduct ArteConTacto Project in Japan, which is a project that involves artistic practice, inclusion, and multisensorial experiences. The project is driven by workshops and participatory art experiences, with people who have special needs, and special questions towards art. Their differences and difficulties associated with perception, memory, cognition and communication enable them to look for other things in the artistic experience, and practice than “normal” people. The results of the artistic practice also helps us to adapt exhibitions and museums, to make art experiences more accessible to all.

Plan during the residency

• The residency will consist of workshops for blind and seeing photographers, and the production of "Tactile Photographs". The methodology is based on more than 10 years of research and practice, in close collaboration with technological companies, universities and blind persons, to establish a dialogue between the hand and the eye. The outcomes of these workshops are artworks, prototypes, artistic research questions, group experiences and sometimes even durable solutions for accessibility problems.
• To research the cultural differences between Europe and Japan, and it is precisely this dialogue in the non-visual field that shall serve as a major outcome of this project. It is a collaborative and participative research in the field of visual art, especially photography, through tactile representation.
  

Activities during the residency

Under the name ArteConTacto, I introduced a Collaborative and Participatory Research Project with Blind and Seeing Photographers in Tokyo. As a part of an artist residency at the TOKAS, four inclusive photography workshops were held, and the results were presented in the form of the OPEN STUDIO. The methodology of the workshops was developed and refined for 10 years, and is based on participatory research, 3D printing and accessibility for art. As for the workshop in Tokyo, tactile reliefs were created in four workshops, pairing each time one blind with one seeing photographer. The resulting works were produced in association with Japanese professionals in the field, such as Susumu Oouchi, from “Te To Me De Miru Kyozai Library (Hands-on and Eyes-on Teaching Materials Library)”, Prof. Dr. Yoshinori Teshima, from Chiba Institute of Technology and photographer Daisuke Ozaki.

Outcome of the residency

The artistic collaboration between blind and seeing photographers was translated into tactile reliefs that can be "grasped" by the participants as well as by the art public. The workshop programme was aimed directly at a section of the population that has traditionally been excluded from the visual arts scene, both as visitors and as producers. In this way, a bridge is built with contemporary art, actively involving them in cultural events. During 16-23 of July, these results will be shown at the Stephaneum in Bad Goisern, in collaboration with Association OTELO and the Hilfsgemeinschaft der Blinden und Sehschwachen Österreichs. There will also be workshops with Austrian blind and seeing photographers, as a reflection on the Japanese works on display, especially around the idea of cultural identity and diversity.

Creator Information