Proximate Intimacies

Context

We do not encounter one another as isolated bodies. We come into being through the entanglements with other bodies, materials, technologies, and environments. These relations are constantly shifting, affecting how we move, sense, behave, and respond to one another. As data-driven technologies become increasingly embedded in our everyday life, they actively participate in shaping the conditions of our encounters. With the growing use of these technologies within systems of surveillance and control, their influence on these conditions is not always visible or reciprocal.

Approach

Within Proximate Intimacies, these dynamics become tangible through sound. Participants’ movements are sensed and translated into an evolving soundscape, creating a feedback loop in which movement and sound continuously influence one another. The project invites visitors to recognise the patterns that emerge as they interact with one another and the technological system, creating space to question and renegotiate them.

Experience

Visitors encounter a circular, semi-enclosed space equipped with a motion-tracking camera and a spatial sound system. Subtle lighting and a translucent enclosure create a space that is both intimate and open. Up to three people can enter the space and engage with one another through movement. As participants begin to move, they discover how their interactions shape the soundscape in predictable and unexpected ways, inviting playful experimentation with different ways of moving and relating to one another.