Emotional Encounter Exhibiting in COME ALIVE-The Power of Pleasure

Emotional Encounter is a hologram installation projected in public space, which serves as a tool to change people’s perception toward space and society. The work provokes the reaction of the public and allows the public to express their desire by encountering a moment of convergence between the private and the public, the day and the night, the real and the virtual. The symbolic or metaphoric meaning of the licking lips as well as the bodily and affective form of communication show the double dimensions of the work. The licking and biting actions of the mouth symbolise the greediness of the capitalist developers’ desire. Meanwhile, the sensual action of licking the lips may trigger “individual passion and urges”, which may trigger desires in the audience to kiss. It is a perfect explanation for having the feature of “Utility Relation Between Viewers and Art” which triggers audience’s desire.

The intention of using supernormal stimuli as the method for producing art is to trigger emotions like “Sensational Enchantment”, or a mood that “involves a surprising encounter” in a public space. The unexpected, the encounter could turn the encounter into a moment of enchantment. As Todd Cronan described: If the majority of viewers of a particular work of art report a similar set of sensations when looking at it then the work must be working on our emotions in a consistent way.

Meanwhile, when people are fully engaged in the supernormal stimuli-built environment, it could help by making residents feel more engaged with their surroundings. The intensified sense of privilege triggered by supernormal stimuli may intensify the sense of alienation and discomfort that is created by the postcolonial city landscape, which could possibly aware the subalternity between the contradiction of themselves and the urban space.

June 3rd we had a phenomenal opening and thanks to all for taking part in what was only the beginning of this sexy journey! Come and get all your senses tickled by our seductive exhibition!

COME ALIVE plays with the power of eroticism to bring new values to life. The immersive exhibition inspires pleasure activism: from bondage to ecstatic dance and tickle workshops. In the former melting room of Het Nieuwe Muntgebouw in Utrecht, where rock-hard coins were once minted, everything becomes fluid. Bodies vibrate with their surroundings, oxytocin diffusers are given free rein, and we train each other’s vagus nerve.

The exhibition is initiated by Niet Normaal INT, curated by Morgan Catalina and Ine Gevers.

The first main hall of Come Alive exhibition VIBRATE where my work Emotional Encounter is showcasing right now, together with Mette Sterre, Alix Marie, Zoï Tatopoulos, Eli Joteva, Company New Heroes, HYENAZ, Hsin Min Chan, Alice Héron, Jan Koen Lomans and Frank Bloem.

COME ALIVE plays with the power of eroticism to bring new values to life. The immersive exhibition inspires pleasure activism: from bondage to ecstatic dance and tickle workshops. In the former melting room of Het Nieuwe Muntgebouw in Utrecht, where rock-hard coins were once minted, everything becomes fluid. Bodies vibrate with their surroundings, oxytocin diffusers are given free rein, and we train each other’s vagus nerve.

This work is located at the entrance of the exhibition called:

If You Don’t Know, You Don’t Grow — Seapussy Power Galore – Abcession (), 2021 (installation) by Mette Sterre

This organic installation activates all your senses. You step into an environment that physically embraces you as if you were being swallowed or slowly dissolved into a bloodstream. It is a place of transition in which you cannot help but experience an exchange with a strange yet familiar environment that breathes, groans and vibrates. Afro futuristic science fiction novels were an inspiration for this intoxicating world, in which even the walls are hungry, and non-humans roam around, illuminating the erotic power contained in everything: objects, nature and the other.