Falla Inmaterial is a digital arts and scientific literacy project launched in 2016 that brings cutting-edge technology to festive culture. Led by Francisco Grimaldo, professor at the School of Engineering of the Universitat de València, in each edition an artist is invited to collaborate, with Reyes Pe being the guest artist in this edition.

Entitled [IN]TOCABLE, it offers two participatory proposals to define in a tactile and visual way the city we want to inhabit. The project includes a face-to-face intervention at La Nau Cultural Centre and a virtual intervention accessible from any mobile device, inviting citizens to reflect on universal concepts and elements of contemporary cities.

The project proposes the exploration, definition and manipulation of the [In]Tocable and [Im]Posible of the city we want to live in. The Spanish prefixes [In] and [Im] imply both negation the state of residing within something. La Nau Cultural Centre of the Universitat de València presents both a face-to-face and a virtual intervention, which is accessible from every mobile device.

We want to make touch the main vehicle of reason, to think with the hands and make this sense the protagonist of the scene. A participatory proposal to experiment in a touch-based way and to rethink ourselves according to a new model of emotions.

We therefore propose a code of our own, touchable and untouchable, in the form of a lawn checkerboard fixed to the ground, made up of two types of textiles, one pleasant and one hostile. All the pieces that will make up the installation are monochrome to eliminate colour, giving shape and form an important role to play in a game of geometries, inspired by Montessori pedagogy.

Within a cultural centre we generate a piece that requires people's activation in order to exist, creating a unique and at the same time collective experience. Doing and undoing, it will not be the same piece for anybody. We deal with themes that are not a game from play, from the children's space, from the ground, the hands and the forms, from the primary, we talk about the most complex, with the aim of generating a horizontal city. Sight as a guide to identify the object and an element of attraction towards the perceptible. Elements that, when changed on the texture and colour map, reconfigure what has been learned.

Everything that is, will be thanks to the interpretation of whoever dialogues with the pieces in a deeper way (understanding all the layers) or, in passing, merely compositional, aesthetic and playful.

Face-to-face intervention:

A fabric covering over the senate tiles serves to delimit the space and define four dimensions that invite reflection: Touchable, untouchable, Possible and impossible. To walk through the porticoed part of the senate allows us to discover the different visions of a city and to define a new map of Padre Tosca, in this case in a collaborative way.

The set of about 30 pieces of foam rubber will be available for people to place freely in the central courtyard, choosing the location, orientation and combination with other pieces. The foam rubber pieces will be lined with fabric, all of them being of the same colour in order to maintain a unity or, precisely the opposite, to generate a division of the same concept. The pieces’ geometry will symbolize the structural elements that conform contemporary cities.

The pieces can be stacked or attached, placed and oriented according to the opinion or desire of the person interacting about their touchable, untouchable, possible or impossible nature.

Virtual intervention:

The fallaimmaterial.com website will provide access to a multimedia game where it will be possible to collaboratively orientate and locate the 3D geometries representing the elements and themes available in the physical intervention. A web-based touch interface will be programmed, with vibrations and sounds to enhance the user experience.

The result of the individual participation in the game will be accumulated to build the [In]Tocable and [Im]Posible universe in the virtual environment, providing both personalised feedback and a global overview of everyone who has interacted with the web tool.

The website will offer a tool to connect the face-to-face and virtual intervention through the photos La Nau sends. Artificial Intelligence will digitally intervene in the monochrome scene to generate a hybrid scenario between the touchable, the untouchable, the possible and the impossible.