Ikon and the University of Birmingham have teamed up to present We need 2 tlk, a new moving image installation by Midlands-based artist Exodus Crooks.

The collection forms part of AI FUTURES at The Exchange, the University of Birmingham’s city centre venue in Centenary Square.

Commissioned by Ikon and the University of Birmingham, with support from Birmingham-based Vivid Projects, Exodus has explored public perceptions of AI and reflections on media and technology as outlined in the work of celebrated Jamaican-British academic and cultural theorist Professor Stuart Hall.

The work, which has been produced in collaboration with movement artist, Chelsea Gordon, considers how developments in communication shift our behaviour when conversing with others.

We need 2 tlk delves into the haptics and gestures seen in everyday phone use and the processing of information from the eye, brain and hands.

The exhibition is hosted within The Vaults, an exhibition space carved out from the old Municipal Bank’s basement secure room. On each side of the room, a film shows a pair of hands in motion, the fingers bending and flexing as if typing on an invisible mobile phone keyboard.

By varying speed and intensity of movement, We need 2 tlk considers how technology mediates the tone and sentiment of the message originally conveyed through gestures of the body.

Also featured is a moving image installation comprising 13 mobile phones displayed horizontally to form the shape of a QWERTY keyboard. Each device displays three keys of an iPhone on-screen keyboard. Subtly, the key arrangement is distorted and each letter or symbol alternates between the Apple font SF Pro and a graphically rendered version that replicates a handwritten letter.

We need 2 tlk is free to the public and is open every Mon – Sat until Sat 2 Nov. You can find more information about the exhibition here.