The Augmented Hand Series by Golan Levin (US), Chris Sugrue (US) and Kyle McDonald (US) functions like a funhouse mirror suggesting alternative shapes for our hand. We may be given several more thumbs, longer ones or twisting tentacles. Like a plastic surgery preview device we are offered the opportunity to switch between options of style. We can train our new hand and to accept the link between our mind and the imaginary sixth thumb.

As playful a device it is, the installation causes a subliminal irritation that questions the potential for letting new applications, transformations and maybe even technological enhancements in. In times of increasing ‘information of the body’, are we able to adapt to any alternative, even virtual bodily shape?

The installation consists of a box into which the visitor inserts their hand, and a touchscreen interface which displays their ‘reimagined’ hand, altered by various dynamic and structural transformations. The kiosk is accompanied by a large rear-projection. The touchscreen allows participants to select among the different transformations.

Critically the project’s morphological transformations operate within the logical space of the hand itself. That is to say: The artwork performs “hand-aware” visualisations that alter the deep structure of how the hand appears unlike, say, a funhouse mirror, which simply distorts the entire field of view.