The inaugural exhibition at SOMA Zurich Haptic Phantoms explores the fragility and permeability of membranes—physical, digital, and metaphorical. In a world where the boundaries between the organic and the mechanical, the real and the simulated, the body and the interface increasingly blur, hybrid spaces of perception emerge.

Tatjana Vall and Justin Urbach work across a range of media to investigate the thresholds and contact zones of these in-between states. Their works address skin as interface, as vessel of memory, as boundary and as point of transition—at times porous, at times resistant, always in flux. Central to the exhibition is the act of making the invisible visible, of uncovering hidden layers and structures. At the same time, the works ask what it means to touch—and to be touched—physically or digitally, and what remains as a trace or phantom of that contact.

The collaborative piece Empty Shell places this idea at its core: a research mission, followed via YouTube livestream, descends into the depths of the ocean to explore a space otherwise inaccessible. The camera, a hollow shell, drifts through darkness, feeling its way forward, collecting fragments and revealing what remains unseen to the human eye. In this form of digital deep-sea exploration, the boundaries between documentation and imagination, between physical and virtual space, begin to dissolve.

Haptic Phantoms invites viewers to engage sensually and conceptually with the shifting nature of materiality and identity.

Exhibition will be on view until 24 May, 2025.