Haptics & Sensoriality on Patrícia J. Reis — Media & Installation Artist

Skin under skin

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Skin under skin, is an audio-visual-tactile interactive installation composed of three human-scale soft objects that invite direct bodily engagement. Made from flexible materials, the work creates a sensorial and intimate relationship between the interactor and the system of the piece. Each object integrates an audio-visual-tactile interface: flickering light, pulsed sound, and internal vibration. When the interactor approaches with eyes closed and engages through touch, the synchronisation of these stimuli generates internal visual phenomena—moving geometric patterns and colours emerging from the brain’s interpretation of altered sensory input. Through this process, perception becomes the site of image construction. The interactor’s sensorial apparatus operates as an active system, producing individual and singular experiences. The interaction is not limited to the work’s technical system; rather, Interaction unfolds within the body, occuring within the internal space of the interactor. The interactor interacts within its system, generating new information and producing experiences in a singular way.

Sensorial Mechanisms

Sun, 01 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Artists Dorota Walentynowicz and Patrícia J. Reis create a shared visual and conceptual space shaped by a soft yet firm negotiation of the gaze. The exhibition brings together a constellation of objects, images, and surfaces that do not fully reveal themselves. Instead, they flicker between presence and concealment—between the desire to be seen and the right to refuse visibility. Embedded within these gestures is an inquiry into the digital gaze: mediated seeing, synthetic vision, machine desire. The artists ask whether, even for a brief moment, we can step back from the flood of images that saturates our daily lives and reflect on the normative frameworks of seeing and being seen—frameworks that reinforce prejudice, capitalism, and colonial narratives. They direct the audience’s attention toward what remains unseen, shifting the gaze away from spectacle and toward its backstage. In doing so, they expose mechanisms of power, recover what has been forgotten, and open the possibility of re-reading the history of visual media and technology from a feminist perspective.

Display Island

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In Display Island, Reis focuses on the physical involvement of participants. The installation activates the viewers’ sensory systems and, in response to the excess of images dominating contemporary visual culture, proposes an alternative mode of engagement—one that operates not primarily through sight, but through bodily and auditory perception. The circular couch installation features a sound work delivered through sound showers shaped like lampshades. The piece takes the form of a spoken, spell-like manifesto. Through layered whispers and declarative voices, it invokes Medusa and the Odalisque as guardians of embodied difference, transforming a critique of patriarchy and the commodification of pleasure into a sensorial act of resistance and remembrance. Interwoven with the voice, a mystical noise is both heard and physically felt through transducer speakers embedded in the couch. In this way, Reis explores new forms of communication between humans and technology grounded in sensuality and intuition. Her works function as laboratories of embodied perception, in which the body is reclaimed as a full-fledged instrument for cognition and interaction with the world.

The Cosmic Box

Sat, 02 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In their site-specific video installation titled The Cosmic Box, artists Patrícia J. Reis and Fernando Mesquita craft a thought-provoking satire that reflects on the human condition, blending dark humor with poignant social critique. Part of the group exhibition Tombola, where the theme and media for each artwork are determined by chance, Reis and Mesquita received the theme “Hope” and the media “Staging.” Their response is a clever subversion of the very notion of hope, offering instead a narrative steeped in pessimism and critique of human existence.

Massage Chairs Love series

Fri, 09 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The work Massage Chair series offers a tangible encounter between automation and perception, where the machine and the body share a material space, engage in a metaphoric dialogue of touch, each responding to the other’s inputs. Participants are invited to embody, relax, and sit comfortably in the specially adjustable chairs — upcycled massage chairs modified by the artist, to which she added comfortable upholstered details and a technical audiovisual–tactile interface.

What's love got to do with it?

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

“A culture of domination is anti-love. It requires violence to sustain itself. To choose love is to go against the prevailing values of the culture. Many people feel unable to love either themselves or others because they do not know what love is.” Bell Hooks (1994)

Coffee Table

Thu, 08 Sep 2022 00:00:00 +0000

In the interactive installation Coffee Table (in German ‘Kaffeekränzchen’), the legacy of gendered porcelain collecting, and the different functions and meaning of this in women’s lives, was explored, while also engaging with themes of art, science and technology.

endoSensorial mask

Fri, 19 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

endoSensorial mask is an interactive installation composed by one sculpture/ mask suspended in space and hanged from the ceiling. The participant is invited to wear a VR headset (embedded in the sculpture) and embody it in multiple possible ways. By doing so, the participant is immersed in a virtual reality environment which is synchronised with the worn physicality of the objects.

from object to affect: proposals for future archives after the media

Sun, 28 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

In the light of the current context of the big data in which data processing, data curation, storage, transfer, visualisation and privacy are major topics of discussion, artists Carla Cabanas and Patrícia J. Reis collaborate for the second time on an artist project that aims to reflect upon alternative ways of digital archiving, materialisation and/or dematerialisation of private objects.

Sensorial Screen #3

Sun, 28 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The sculpture Sensorial Screen #3 is an interactive installation that allows the body to view itself as a place where complex visual information. Is perceived as a sensation that can also be felt on the skin level. The vibration (60 vibration motors) reacts to the motion of the flag represented in the video. Weather-related pain or meteoropathy is the effect of weather on the human organism. Air pressure fluctuations, foehn winds, heat waves, changing humidity and thunderstorms might have an effect on general health, mood and performance levels of individuals.In particular, people who are weakened by chronic diseases, such as rheumatism or asthma are more sensitive to the weather.

Blow!

Thu, 07 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

In the light of the current digital media context, in which data and privacy are major topics of discussion, Patrícia J. Reis artwork examines potential processes of semantic translation between humans and machines.

Through the hole is the way "Out-of-This World"

Mon, 29 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Through the hole is the way ‘Out-of-This-World’ is a site-specific interactive installation presented by media artists Patricia J. Reis in collaboration with Lukas Vincent Walcher, first created for the open-air segment of the experimental station Kulturdrogerie in Vienna and, later installed and adapted to the nature site-specificity of Flora Pondtemporary, Stiftsteiche in St. Florian, Austria.

Sensorial screen #1

Tue, 18 Sep 2018 00:00:00 +0000

The project Sensorial screen is a concept for an interactive installation that considers the body as a screen, as a place, in which complex visual information can be perceived as a sensation, and felt at the skin level. By focusing on the haptic experience of the participant it takes into consideration his or hers sensorial biological apparatus in the construction of unique individual phenomenological experiences.

Touching my breath

Thu, 23 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In the light of the current digital media context, in which data and privacy are major topics of discussion, Patrícia J. Reis artwork examines potential processes of semantic translation between humans and machines. Touching my breath (2018) focuses on one’s own intimate haptic system, taking into consideration their sensorial mechanism as an apparatus for the construction of individual sensations. The interactive installation invites participants to engage physically and bodily, experiencing haptic sensations resultant from the data collected from their own breath.

[B.M.I.] BELIEVER. MACHINE. INTERFACE

Fri, 05 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

We learned to believe in machines! We enjoy believing in machines!

The BMI project investigates fictional technomancy by questioning the boundaries between science, religion and magic from the point of view of the user and/or the believer.

Intimate Archives After Media

Fri, 05 Jan 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In the light of the current context of the big data where data processing, data curation, storage, transfer, visualization and privacy are major topics of discussion, artists Carla Cabanas and Patrícia J. Reis proposed to collaborate on an artist project that aims to reflect upon future ways of materialization and/or dematerialization of visual private archives.

Cutting the body