research concept

Today's digital world is noisy. Contemporary society is rapidly changing and fast-paced, technology is accessible for almost everyone. Also in the course of intimacy. Think of the use of dating- or hookup apps, the access of adult content online or electronic pleasure devices. Is the intimacy we experience even real anymore? And what defines ‘real intimacy’? When thinking about transhumans, we often envision cyborgs and robots with Artificial Intelligence, but what impact will that have on the connection between humans? We've become so hyper-connected with each other that we've become completely disconnected from the true core of our being. The most fundamental part of being human is connecting with other humans, and the experience of those interactions. To what degree/extent does technology let us sit in the same room as someone and enjoy their company, or glance at them, or touch their arm?

The time that we live in today, is one full of impulses and stimuluses. In fact, we are addicted to input. We want comfort of being in contact via social media, the control of our devices and perhaps even our feelings. Getting intimate was never as easy as it is now. Within my research, I wanted to investigate the different ways of intimacy we experience and how real they are.

That we need touching for survival was first proved by a scientist Harry Harlowe, in an experiment with baby monkeys. The result was that attachment to the mother went further than just food, the baby monkeys needed comfort and opted for a soft fake replica of their mother instead of a hard shell, even though that hard shell offered food. Contact and touch are vital to attachment, learning, emotional well being and psychological development.

The future of our intimacy

Some innovations I looked into before defining my project:

Long distance kissing or touching devices

Touch is becoming a different action. Instead of physical, you can now have distant touch through electronics.

Kissing from a distance: Kissinger (kiss+messenger)
“Kissing is the most direct and effective way of sharing an intimate moment and Internet communications should allow people to connect to each other through this form of interaction. Vnc. Studies have shown that a higher frequency of romantic kissing between couples increases romantic satisfaction and reduces stress levels,” Zhang (CEO) said. She added that even people who would consider certain types of kissing inappropriate were OK with the electronically mediated sort and found the experience interesting.

Tesla Suit
Suit with 68 haptic points on the body, able to manipulate muscles, give shocks to wearer, massage wearer (similar to massage chair). Their statement: ’’Our advanced physical suits provide haptic feedback and capture both motion and biometrics.’’ https://teslasuit.io

Skinterface
Similar to the Tesla suit is the Skinterface sleeve, a sleeve designed compatible with VR to experience sense and feel. Made with magnetic nodes, able to recognize pressure, tempature and sensation.

Pillowtalk
One invention that falls between touching and pleasure is Little Riot’s ‘Pillowtalk’, a long distance ‘heartbeat’ device, that connects to a wrist band and plays your partners heartbeat on a speaker to bring back the feeling of intimacy and closeness when far away from the other person.
http://www.littleriot.com/pillow-talk/

Remote controlled pleasure devices

Teledildonics, the word for remote controlled stimulation toys, a rapid growing market. With these devices the question arises, is it really touch, is it really intimacy with a technological substitute for the other person?

Biodata and biofeedback devices

Moving on to biofeedback and biodata electronics, another corner in the science of the ‘next level-human’. Biofeedback is the process of gaining a greater awareness or consciousness of bodily functions with help of electronic instruments, with the goal of manipulating the body as a system. It makes use of biodata such as the tension of your muscles, the way of breathing, your heartbeat, temperature and the level of perspiration.

Those same biodata-factors (pulse, temperature, increased sweating, muscles contraction) are what I defined as intimacy-factors, as well as something that can only be experienced between humans, meaning no technology-human or human-technology-human. I wanted to make something that could be used as a technological tool to test that intimacy.
I started focussing on a measuring tool that would characterize that level of closeness, bringing it back to its core: a shared moment between (two) physically present human beings.

What started as a critique or comment about the use of these devices and the changing definition of intimacy, changed when the self-isolation due to the COVID-19 arose. The idea of only being able to experience intimacy with technological enhancement in-between, was quite dystopian to me. But being locked inside my house, I started to question the values around my project. It is true that people need touch to survive, but in times when that touch from another being is less accessible, the answer could lie on those devices that I first discarded so fast. It made me experience both perspectives in this debate, and although I still stand by my original point that ‘real’ intimacy can only be experienced in person, sometimes a substitute or intermediate is needed. Intimacy from a distance is maybe more needed than I realized, in a world so globalized yet so fragile to a situation as extreme as the Corona virus pandemic.

Our current bodies vs. our potential future bodies

IMPULSES NOISE DISTRACTION FAKE NEWS
INFORMATION FAST CONFUSION MEDIA SENSORS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE COMMUNICATIONS ONLINE OFFLINE NON-STOP DESIRE VIRTUAL AVAILABLE DATA ROBOTS EXPANSION TRANSMITTING MONITOR IMPULSES NOISE DISTRACTION FAKE NEWS INFORMATION FAST CONFUSION MEDIA SENSORS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE COMMUNICATIONS ONLINE OFFLINE NON-STOP DESIRE VIRTUAL AVAILABLE DATA ROBOTS EXPANSION TRANSMITTING MONITOR

IMPULSES NOISE DISTRACTION FAKE NEWS INFORMATION FAST CONFUSION MEDIA SENSORS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE COMMUNICATIONS ONLINE OFFLINE NON-STOP DESIRE VIRTUAL AVAILABLE DATA ROBOTS EXPANSION TRANSMITTING MONITOR IMPULSES NOISE DISTRACTION FAKE NEWS INFORMATION FAST CONFUSION MEDIA SENSORS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE COMMUNICATIONS ONLINE OFFLINE NON-STOP DESIRE VIRTUAL AVAILABLE DATA ROBOTS EXPANSION TRANSMITTING MONITOR