Mobile Feelings

Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau, Mobile Feelings, 2003
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Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau, Mobile Feelings, 2003
image/jpeg
215 × 295

"Mobile Feelings" is an artistic project that explores the ambivalence of sharing personal information with an anonymous audience. Instead of communication via voice or images to people we know, "Mobile Feelings" lets people communicate with strangers through virtual touch and body sensations which include smell and sweat.

Specially equipped "Mobile Feelings" devices host miniature biosensors and actuators that measure the users' heartbeat, blood pressure and pulse, skin conductivity, sweat and smell. The captured data are then sent to anonymous users who can perceive and feel these most private sensations of others through actuators, vibrators, ventilators, micro electromechanical and micro-bioelectrochemical systems which are embedded in each "Mobile Feelings" device. All devices communicate with each other through a mobile phone communication network.
The project is set up at linked locations, one at the Ars Electronica 2003 in Linz, Austria and the other at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris.
Users on both locations are provided with special "Mobile Feelings" devices that resemble organic or bodily shapes. When a user in Paris touches her device, a user in Linz can receive subtle body sensations, such as a tickle, a vibration, a push, a light touch, a gentle breeze and some humidity, which all feel like a "virtual embrace" from the remote user in Paris.
(Christa SOMMERER & Laurent MIGNONNEAU)