Mutsugoto

Mutsugoto is an interactive installation that invites couples to experience an intimate communication over a distance created by Tomoko Hayashi, Stefan Agamanolis and Matthew Karau.





Begin by laying on the bed and wearing the special ring. As you relax and think about your partner, gently move your hand around your body. These movements are traced on your own body as well as your partner laying in the other bed. Twinkling spots give a hint of where your partner is drawing. If you follow your partner’s movements and your strokes cross, the lines will react with each other and reflect your synchrony.

Don't forget to check the beautiful video of Mutsugoto. This is the first time I've seen ambient remote communication being that beautifully achieved and that sensual.





In 2003 Tomoko Hayashi created Intimacy is a series of accessories for people who exist in a long-distance relationship. The accessories are a combination of ties or undergarments with jewelry such as necklace or ring. Each accessory encloses jewelry inside and is heat-pressed to make an embossed pattern of the jewelry on its surface. Lovers can take the jewelry out to give it as a gift to their lover in a distant location. This allows lovers to share the memory of the object remotely and feel close to each other. The embossed pattern will fade away little by little (through pressure, moisture or heat) with daily use. When they meet again, the lovers can recreate the pattern by pressing the piece with a very hot iron.




Posted by Cati Vaucelle
♥ Architectradure
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A stretchy fabric controller

Created by Angela Chang, Zstretch is a fabric device that can capture the richness of active touch interactions for controlling music interactions. Much of the prior work on integrating electronics with textiles focused on rigid, exact places for touching the fabric, rather than supporting the many actions our hands and bodies can create. The project explores how to support the large range of forces that people apply when interacting with fabric.

Paper for Nime 2007

The SynchroMate

The SynchroMate fits snuggly in the palm of one's hand (...) it encourages serendipitous synchronous interaction by indicating when a message is being composed for you by a distant companion through gentle vibrations and pulsing concentric circles of lush colors on the display

SynchroMate: A Phatic Technology for Mediating Intimacy, by Martin R. Gibbs, Steve Howard, Frank Vetere, Marcus Bunyan (2006)

Abstract
By and large interaction design has been concerned with information exchange - technologies for the collection, processing and transmission of informational content. This design sketch discusses preliminary ideas about an alternative way to think about interactive technologies - phatic technologies - that are less concerned with capturing and communicating information and more about the establishment and maintenance of social connection. Drawing on insights and inspiration gleaned from a recent field-based study of the role of interactive technologies within intimate relationships we outline our preliminary ideas concerning technologies to support phatic interaction. Using materials collected during our fieldwork as design inspirations, we developed design sketches for phatic technologies intended to support playful connection between intimates. One of these sketches - SynchroMate - is presented. SynchroMate is a phatic technology designed to mediate intimacy by affording serendipitous synchronous exchanges.


Full case study