Creating Intimate Places for Close by Heart but Physically Apart People Through Remote Embodiments

Abstract

Our bodies play a significant role in maintaining and nourishing intimacy. For people who are close by heart but physically apart, the bodies are geographically separated, so intimacy is experienced remotely without shared physicality of the bodies. This paper presents the design experiment that is grounded within the author’s remote intimacy experiences and her sense-making attempts as a daughter and a designer. The design experiment focuses on exploring intimate places that are created in remote settings, specifically exploring the place that is created by making (something new and fragile) together and wearing the creation in daily life from a distance.