Touchscreen

It has been said that if you can’t walk from one room to another without taking your device with you, you have become an addict.

We live in a time where such an addiction is so widespread it is considered normal. But at what cost?

ArtHouse Jersey and Ballet d’Jèrri announce Touchscreen, an experimental movement performance by multidisciplinary artists Robert James Anderson and Donovan Délis-McCarthy, featuring a special appearance by dancers from Ballet d’Jèrri.

Taking place on Friday 8 and Saturday 9 March 2024 (8pm both nights) at ArtHouse Jersey at Capital House, Anderson and Délis-McCarthy will present a stunning immersive performance piece in which both audience members and performers are asked to consider the profound impacts of our high-speed, globally connected and often isolating new world.

Speaking to the themes explored in Touchscreen artist Robert James Anderson said: “These are issues of profound significance to me. The internet has brought me many positive things: a great deal of information on my areas of interest, relationships professional and personal, ways of establishing/sustaining contact with collaborators.

“But these benefits exist in stark contrast to my growing difficulty in focusing, a sense of oversaturation and a consequent devaluing inner narrative regarding my own work, all of which also have their roots in my internet-accessing devices. I was a child who used my creativity as a way of understanding, expressing and healing, all of which require time and an ability to get lost in the creative process. This is almost impossible when a device is trying its best by design to distract me, yet it might be the very same device that I am using to transcribe an online image into a painting, or listen to a piece of music to inspire me. This performance looks into this dichotomy that so many of us live with now in hopes of navigating towards a healthier connectedness.”