Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, a period marked by distance and disembodiment, questions around presence, intimacy, and touch became increasingly urgent. As with other works exploring shared digital experience, this project responds to the conditions of physical separation by investigating how gesture and sensation might be meaningfully transmitted using technology. Rooted in an interest in tele-presence, affective interfaces, and embodied technology, this work re-imagines how connection might be felt rather than simply seen or heard. This project was made as part of my artist in residence at IDlab at the Amsterdam University of the Arts, working with the scenography students.

This wearable artwork consists of a custom-made leotard embedded with addressable LED strips, powered by a battery and controlled via Arduino. A companion software system, built in OpenFrameworks, captures three-dimensional touch input from an Apple track-pad—including position and pressure, and sends this data over WebSockets to a remote machine connected to the leotard. When a user touches the track-pad, their gesture activates corresponding regions of the suit in real time, illuminating the body through light. The inclusion of pressure sensitivity allows the system to distinguish between a single point and a broader, more diffuse touch, enabling complex, nuanced interaction.

The project stages a poetic exchange of touch across distance, transforming digital input into bodily illumination. It operates as an experiment in remote intimacy, one in which the boundaries between bodies, machines, and gestures are blurred. This work proposes alternate modes of sensory connection and empathy in technologically mediated spaces. It is as much a choreography of data and light as it is a speculative proposal for a form of touch.