TELE_TRUST: How do we trust each other as networking bodies? Do we need to look each other in the eyes? Or do we need to touch each other?

In TELE_TRUST Lancel and Maat explore how in our changing social eco-system we increasingly demand transparency; while at the same time we increasingly cover our vulnerable bodies with personal communication-technology. For TELE_TRUST Lancel and Maat designed a hybrid play zone for a vulnerable process, of balancing between fear AND desire for the other. In a visual, poetic way they explore the emotional and social tension between visibility and invisibility; privacy and trust.

TELE_TRUST is a meeting place.
TELE_TRUST takes place in dynamic public spaces. Here Lancel and Maat invite the audience in six interactive, full body data-veils. 
The data-veils combine visual elements of full body covering wearables in eastern and western traditions. They are inspired by a monks’ habit and a burqa; as well as by a ‘trustworthy’ chalk stripe business suit.
Everyone can wear a data-veil.  When wearing a data-veil your body becomes an interface: flexible sensors are woven in the smart textile of each data-veil. The data-veil functions as a membrane. When touching your own body, the six data-veils form a digital network.

- Can I touch you now? By touching your body in the data-veil you can meet others in the network. You meet in an intimate virtual experience, to exchange stories on horror and beauty: Am I here with you? Who is watching who? Who is controlling who? And in whose body?

TELE_TRUST Shows 2009/2010: ElectroSmog / De Balie, Amsterdam; Eyebeam - New York;  BANFF – Canada; RIXC – Riga;Tschumipaviljoen- Groningen, V2_Instituut voor instabiele media, Rotterdam Lumineus Amersfoort.

With generous support of: Mondriaan Stichting Interregeling; Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst; De Balie Amsterdam; Amsterdams Hogeschool voor de Kunst; ARTI, Sandberg Institute Amsterdam, V2_Institute for unstable media; Waag Society for Old &New media  Amsterdam .