Soren Thilo Funder

"Mirror-touch synesthesia" is a neurological phenomenon where a person feels the same touch as they see another person experiencing. Stimuli on one sense thus trigger a feeling in another. In the video work ’Mirror Touch (Archipelago DLC_01)’, employees at the high-frequency trading company Archipelago™ are subjected to a series of experimental tests in the development of synthetic empathy. The process aims to reunite the body's space with the cognitive; the corporeal with the immaterial; the real with the imaginary. Accompanied by the film's actors, the viewer is led by a commanding voice on a suggestive journey from the trading terminals to the physical reality of the factory. Here, we are reminded of the factory floor's still indisputable and violent physical reality and the worker's body as a physical witness to the violent imprint of progress.