The Alien Between Us: Intimacy Through Biofeedback

Intimacy Through Separation

This work creates a space where social roles and expectations fade away, allowing participants to connect through touch and feeling instead of identity or appearance. The installation has two identical stations placed a few meters apart. Each station features a twin sculpture. Two visitors enter from opposite sides and interact with the sculptures without seeing one another. The sculptures transmit live physiological data, such as heartbeat and breathing, between the two participants. This creates a feedback loop where each person can feel and respond to the other’s state in real time. By separating the visitors while linking their bodies through technology, the work invites them to experience intimacy in a new way: through resonance and empathy, rather than through language or learned behaviour.

Empathy and Defense Mechanisms

The sculptures resemble strange, living objects, part organ, part foetus, part alien, that can be held in one’s arms. When activated by a visitor’s presence, they breathe and pulse in rhythm with the other participant’s body. By touching them, visitors influence and respond to each other, as the sculptures reveal signs of arousal, stress, or relaxation.

On a symbolic level, the artworks represent the “Other”, not only the other person, but also a reminder that we are always connected and constantly affecting one another’s lives. This connection also brings responsibility, whether assumed willingly or imposed by force. If one participant behaves abusively, the sculptures will defend themselves. In this way, the work encourages care and accountability, inviting visitors to treat each other and the sculptures that mediate their encounter, with empathy: whether through gentle interaction, or by confronting the consequences when boundaries are pushed too far.

Bodies as Interfaces

This project investigates what role technology can play in our longing to connect physically. Can machines become empowering tools that teach us about ourselves, our desires, and help us express our boundaries.

Here, technology is the “alien” between us, an unfamiliar presence that both divides and unites. The sculptures are not merely interfaces but bodies in their own right, with strange organs and skins that invite touch. Holding them can feel as instinctive as cradling a child or stroking an animal. By leaning into this strangeness, its uncertainty and ambiguity, the work opens up other ways of being together, where technology heightens our bodily awareness and assists us in making more conscious, informed choices.