Intimacy is born from the closeness one feels from familiarity.
This familiarity can be from friendship, a parent-child relationship, romantic love, and more. We each practice acts of intimacy in our everyday lives in our own unique ways. Often times, we as human’s display intimacy through the act of touch. This act of touch connects the corporeality of two bodies together. We engage in different acts of contact to communicate different sentiments. Holding hands, hugging, and a kiss, all convey a different message but fall under the umbrella that is intimacy.
Tones of Intimacy is an experience that sonifies interpersonal interactions through physical proximity. By allowing participants to collaboratively explore and question their own intimacy we aim to investigate the uniqueness that arises from different relationships. Tones of Intimacy invites two participants to explore intimacy through physical touch and proximity. This interactive installation allows two users to engage in different levels of intimate touch and closeness with one another.
Using the Xbox Kinect and skeleton tracking, our installation maps the overlapping of joints on two bodies to musical notes. For example, if participants hands are close to one another, a sound will play, or if their shoulder joints are touching a different sound will play. If participants pull away from each other a sound will stop playing. This allows participants to create their own soundscapes over time through their chosen interactions via proximity and touch. We hope to encourage people in platonic, romantic, and familial relationships to analyze and understand the importance of how physical touch manifests in their own relationships.
Visit tonesofintimacy.glitch.me for more details and additional audio examples.
Tones of Intimacy Pitch Deck
