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Installation view, Ilona Sagar, 'Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye', 2015, Tenderpixel.

Ilona Sagar

Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye

3 until 24 October 2015

PV: Friday, 2 October, 7 - 9pm

Performances weekly

Performance Schedule

Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye is a durational performance as part of Ilona Sagar’s solo show.

Friday, 9 October, 3 to 6pm
Saturday, 10 October, 3 to 6pm
Wednesday, 14 October, 3 to 6pm
Thursday, 15 October, 3 to 6pm
Friday, 16 October, 3 to 6pm
Saturday, 17 October, 3 to 6pm
Friday, 23 October, 3 to 6pm
Saturday, 24 October, 3 to 6pm

Ilona Sagar’s newly completed film, Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye, combines references to affective computing, flat design, haptic technology and virtual design systems with historical and medieval studies of the glass delusion. This condition was an external manifestation of a psychiatric disorder recorded in Europe in between the 15th to 17th centuries. The first clear glass, cristallo, was invented 15th century, and it was around this time that the glass delusion was first reported. People feared that they were made of glass, pottery and wood and therefore likely to shatter into pieces. In modern times, the glass delusion has disappeared, accounts of people believing themselves to be materials have been replaced with the development of neurological terminology such as hypochondria. The exhibition unpicks the corporal dialect of the contemporary body and reveals the relationship we have to it as both an advanced and primal signifier. In the wake of our conflicting relationship to the virtual, advancements in technology have left a messy physiological residue. The link between language, surface, technologies and the body is a compelling subject and the basis of Sagar’s on-going research.

Technical crew list: Gaffer operator Tom Nowell; voice mix Doug Haywood; sound design Patrick Burniston and Grader Jonny Tully; cast voice over Penelope McGhie and Gately Freeman; screen actors Jon Campling, Kitty Fredorec and Anoushka Jago; runners Sebastian Nowell, Simina Neagu, Amy Nickolls and Clare Armiger; glass maker special credit Jochen Holz.

Ilona Sagar, 'Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye', 2015, video still. Tenderpixel.

Ilona Sagar, Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye, 2015, video still.

Installation view. 'Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye', 2015.

Installation view. 'Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye', 2015.

Ilona Sagar, 'Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye', 2015, interlocking pieces of mouth blown glass. Tenderpixel.

Ilona Sagar, 'Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye', 2015. Tenderpixel.

Ilona Sagar, 'Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye', 2015. Tenderpixel.

Ilona Sagar, 'Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye', 2015.

Ilona Sagar, 'Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye', 2015.

Ilona Sagar, 'Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye', 2015, Tenderpixel.

Install view, Ilona Sagar, 'Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye', 2015, Tenderpixel.

Ilona Sagar, Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye, 2015, video still.

Ilona Sagar, Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye, 2015, video still.

Ilona Sagar, Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye, 2015, video still.

Ilona Sagar, Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye, 2015, video still.

Ilona Sagar, Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye, 2015, video still. Tenderpixel.

Photography by Original&thecopy.

Ilona Sagar (b 1985), lives and works in London. She received a BA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths College in 2008 and completed an MFA in Sculpture at the Royal College of Art in 2012. She is currently a TECHNE, AHRC research funded MPhil/Phd by practice candidate at the Royal College of Art in London. In 2018 she won the The Arts and Humanities Research Council Film Award with her project Correspondence O.


Recent projects include Living with Buildings, group exhibition, Wellcome Collection, London, UK (2018/2019); Self Service, publication and event series, CCA Glasgow as part of Glasgow International (2018); Correspondence O, solo exhibition at South London Gallery, London UK (2017/2018), HereAfter: Outcome Project as part of the SPACE HereAfter residency, The White Building, London UK (2017); a solo project at Pump House Gallery, London as part of The Ground We Tread (2016); solo exhibition For Acquiring Lungs and Walking on Dry Land, DKUK, London (2016); solo show with performances Haptic Skins of a Glass Eye Tenderpixel, London UK (2015); solo show with performance Mute Rehearsal, Vitrine Gallery, London UK (2015); Art Rotterdam, Main Section, Rotterdam NL with Tenderpixel (2015); solo show and performances  PROSOPOPOEIA : MANUAL : HAND : BOOK, Assembly Passage Project, London UK (2014); performance I fell backwards and you were there at Hayward Gallery Project Space, London UK (2014); group exhibition What Love has to do with it, Hayward Gallery Project Space, London UK (2014); exhibition and performance Soft Addictions Embassy Gallery, Edinburgh UK (2014); exhibition Eupnea, Saturated Space research cluster, Architecture Association, London UK (2014); screening of Human Factors at Caroll/Fletcher, London UK (2014); performance Human Factors at Parasol Unit Foundation for Contemporary Art, London UK (2014); solo show Human Factors, Tenderpixel, London UK (2014); exhibition The Ballad of Peckham Rye, Bussey Building, London, Peckham UK (2013); performance Human Factors, Art on the Underground as part of Art Licks Weekend, London UK (2013); performance Heart of Darkness, Le Centre National d’Art Contemporain, Nice FR (2012); exhibition The Visionary Trading Project, Guest Projects, London UK (2012); solo exhibition and performance States of Matter, the Swiss Church, London UK (2011); and performance Architectural Playgrounds, Barbican, London UK (2010).