This tech art ‘intimacy device’ looks really fun, sweet and sexy to play with — and I’m fairly certain I can find a test bunny to sign onto the project with. Possibly maybe. *But* I’d also like to work in the idea that this would be an *extremely* good reason to make my way to Edinburgh this Fall for the Arts Festival…
Of course the sex/tech innovations — like this art piece — are coming from the arena of gaming technology; that’s what I’ve been saying for years now. Snip from Couples to test ‘intimacy’ device:
Couples in long distance relationships are being sought to try out a prototype device designed to communicate intimacy from their bedrooms. Moray-based technology laboratory, Distance Lab, hopes to find three couples willing to use Mutsugoto. The device allows couples, who are separated by distance, to draw in light on each other’s bodies or beds. Stefan Agamanolis, one of its three developers, said it will be the first time it is tested in this way.
Volunteers will be sought at the Edinburgh Arts Festival in August.
Distance Lab, which describes itself as a creative research organisation, hope to find couples where one partner lives in the capital while the other, who will be given a portable device, lives a few hundred miles away. (…)
Mutsugoto has been in development for about two years and involves artist Tomoko Hayashi. The project recently won an award from the Alt-w Production Fund. Mr Agamanolis said the device was designed to communicate intimacy and to offer an alternative to text and e-mail messaging.
While lying on their beds miles away from each other, the couples wear touch-activated rings visible to a camera mounted above them. A computer vision system tracks the movement of the ring as one of the device’s users passes it across their own body, or bed.
At the same time these strokes are transmitted to and projected in beams of light on the body of their partner. The lines change colour if they cross. (…read more, news.bbc.co.uk, thanks B!)
Read more about Mutsugoto here. Watch their video, too:
Mutsugoto from Distance Lab on Vimeo.
Something more for Jack Thompson (sp?) to whine about. :/
The intersection of both technology and sex is very intriguing. Maybe ,it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to integrate the two,together. You would get an interesting amalgam of both. Some people seem to spend too much time on gaming becoming vidiots and not enough time being intimate. Perhaps this bridges the gap somewhat, though there is something to be said for the real thing. The sensations,touch, smells of real sex seem very difficult to replicate BUT it would be interesting to see how close this “high tech” sex gets to the actual experience. I wonder what Ballard would have thought of all of this……….