Hands On / Hands Off is a short exploration of our evolving relationship with our hands, as limbs that have not only been central to the definition of what it means to be human, but also as the driving force of material culture over the last millennia. In robotics, replicating the hand is the last frontier, its complexity and agility often confounding the efforts of engineers and computer scientists.

The exhibition presents itself as a collage of visual imagery which focuses attention on the myriad expressions, tasks and functions of the hand, contrasted with a fabled account of the hand’s rise, fall, and newfound resurrection in the age of mechanization and artificial intelligence.

Ultimately the exhibition is a question on both the legacy of the hand in creativity and design, and its future in a world of anonymity. In our gradual march towards a fully automated future, one stubborn truism persists: the hand remains a mystery. Perhaps the hand is the last thing remained that makes us human.

Merve Bedir is an architect. Her work examines infrastructures of hospitality and mobility. A second thread of work follows the posthuman relationships in the context of ecology and cybernetics. She has a PhD from Delft University of Technology, and currently a post-doc research at the Critical Media Lab, Basel.

Brendan Cormier is Chief Curator of Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) East in London, UK. At the V&A, he has curated several major gallery projects and exhibitions, including Values of Design at Design Society in Shenzhen, China (2017); A World of Fragile Parts at the 2016 Venice Biennale of Architecture; and Cars: Accelerating the Modern World at V&A South Kensington (2019). Prior to his work at the museum, he was managing editor of Volume magazine.

Hands on // Hands Off

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A Brief History of the Robotic Hand

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The Last Defining Trait of Being Human

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26/7–9/9/2023

Curator: Merve Bedir, Brendan Cormier