I wanted to move away from my usual subject and explore what I find to be a captivating part of modern society—intimacy.
What is it today? Does it even exist? How do we approach it, and how do we engage with it?
Often, most of this side of life is experienced online; we feel attraction online.
PROTOCOL: INTIMACY
Research indicates that Gen Z is the most imaginative generation.
Excerpt from Dazed magazine
Concentration
This project explores the transformation of the human phenomena of closeness, eroticism, and attraction in the age of total mediatization. Moving from physical space to digital space, the sensory experience inevitably passes through the filters of interfaces, algorithmic patterns, and pixelated screens.Today, a significant portion of a person’s erotic and emotional life unfolds online—we feel real attraction to intangible images displayed on a glowing screen.
references
The installation poses a question: what has intimacy become today? Does it exist in a moment when physical presence is replaced by simulation, and affections and sexual impulses are coded into standardized textual patterns?
The installation space is built on distance and opposition. The viewer confronts two spatially separated screens, upon which digital avatars (a young man and a young woman) remain in a state of stasis and anticipation. They face each other, yet their communication is blocked until a third element—the viewer—intervenes.
A physical controller presented before the screens mimics an artifact of digital communication. The buttons affixed to it play out typical phrases from messengers and dating applications, ranging from the intimate «Are you asleep?» to the direct «I want you.» By pressing them, the viewer simultaneously becomes a moderator, a voyeur, and the director of another’s desire. Each press triggers pre-recorded scenes of the digital pair’s interaction, exposing the mechanization and algorithmic nature of modern romance.
mechanics
Spatial Arrangement:
- Two human-height vertical displays/monitors are positioned directly facing each other at a specified distance (1.5–2 meters).
- The screens display a looping video of digital figures (a guy and a girl) standing in anticipation in base mode. The characters' gazes are directed through the space toward each other.Phygital Interface:
- In the center between the screens (or slightly to the side), an original physical controller (an analog remote with interactive buttons) is placed on a pedestal.
- Each button features engraved or illuminated text—a pattern derived from online chats («Are you asleep?», «Send a photo, ” „I want you, ” „Where are you?“, etc.)…
The controller is connected to the media server (Arduino / Raspberry Pi / TouchDesigner). Upon the audience member pressing any of the buttons, the system reads the signal and instantly switches the video stream on both screens. The corresponding micro-scene of interaction is activated (ranging from dynamics of shyness and flirting to kinetic expression and erotic plasticity). Upon completion of the scene, the system returns to its initial state of static waiting.
