Intimate Transactions is an exciting new form of interactive installation that allows two people in geographically separate spaces to interact simultaneously across a network by moving their bodies. Each participant lies upon a physical interface called a “Bodyshelf”. By gently moving their bodies on this “smart furniture” they instigate “intimate transactions”, which influence an evolving “world” created from emergent digital imagery, multichannel sound and tactile feedback.

The work is designed to be experienced for up to 20 minutes at each of the two sites and both Bodyshelves should ideally be occupied in order to allow a full experience for all participants. Both Bodyshelves are embedded with an array of sensors, which detect shifting balances of bodyweight and different types of back pressure (movement of weight and shifting back pressure are the two modes of operation). Each person also wears a simple haptic device that sits upon his or her stomach and they feel vibrations passing through the structure of the Bodyshelf. These devices assist in sensing inter-person communication and presence. In front of each participant hangs a large projection screen and they are surrounded by a circular array of eight loudspeakers (7+1) that creates an immersive, visceral landscape of constantly evolving sound and image. This shared experience allows each participant to gradually develop a form of sensory intimacy with the other, despite the fact that they are geographically separated and cannot physically see or hear each other. As this highly immersive experience evolves, each participant begins to sense their part in a complex web of relations that connect them, and everything else within the work.