What is visual intimacy?

Abstract

Intimacy is a key social goal and the fundamental basis of close social relationships. Current social relationships and the interactions through which they are created and maintained are highly visualised. This visualisation also transforms the way that intimacy is played out. Based on an interdisciplinary literature review, this paper focuses on the concepts of intimacy and visual intimacy, and maps the different roles that visuals can play in intimacy practices. It shows that the content of visuals is not always essential for creating and maintaining intimacy. Practices relating to producing, sharing, and talking about pictures, as well as practices of seeing, also need to be taken into account when discussing the overall concept of visualintimacy.

Baked bunnies, couple selfies, and video-call gardening

“…Thus, visual practices comprise "what people do with photographs" (Edwards, 2012, p. 224) and with visuals in general. Therefore, we underscore that not only the content of visuals but the act of doing something with visuals can also be important in initiating and cultivating relationship closeness and intimacy (Lobinger et al, 2021). Due to their associative and holistic character (M. G. Müller, 2007;Nöth, 2011), visuals are particularly suitable for triggering and displaying human emotions, which make them ideal elements for creating intimacy (M. G. Müller & Kappas, 2010) and maintaining relationships.…”

“…Visual activities were thus transformed into a shared activity that the couple undertook together. This physical closeness of the partners produced feelings of physical intimacy through joint engagement in visual practices (Lobinger et al, 2021). Also, visual practices such as the couples looking at their photographs and talking about them were found to be important for creating feelings of physical closeness (Prieto-Blanco, 2016;Rose, 2010) and emotional intimacy (Lobinger et al, 2021), as well as for relationship enactment (Van House, 2009).…”

“…Indeed, intimacy can act as a buffer against "negative forces" (Hand et al, 2013, p. 12), such as a pandemic. Intimacy has many different dimensions (see Lobinger et al, 2021). Generally, following Jiang and Hancock (2013), intimacy is understood "as a dyadic and interdependent relating process whereby a personal, subjective sense of closeness develops through enduring interactions using a range of interpersonal media over time" (Jiang & Hancock, 2013, p. 557).…”

“…Within this highly diverse communication technoscape of social relationships, visuals are of central importance, both in co-present and distant mediated interactions (see, e.g., Van House, 2009) for "being there" as well as to "feel close," "share everyday life" (Neustaedter & Greenberg, 2012, p. 754), and create intimacy (Andreassen et al, 2018;Lobinger et al, 2021;Thorhauge et al, 2020). In the present paper, visuals are understood, following Aiello and Parry (2020), as "non-linguistic pictorial elements that feature in cultural artefacts distributed via media technologies" (Aiello & Parry, 2020, p. 5).…”

“…Furthermore, visuals can be highly valuable means of sharing moments with others. The immediacy of the visual exchange allows for real-time sharing (Lobinger et al, 2021); thus, not only does it overcome spatial and temporal distance, it also allows a particular experience of simultaneity (Villi, 2015), of "being present" at the very scene of the communication partner, as the example of videocalling illustrates. This kind of simultaneous participation in each other's lives creates a sense of visually mediated co-presence (Lasén, 2015;Villi, 2016), fosters closeness and togetherness, and strengthens the intimate bonds between the communicators (Prieto-Blanco, 2016).…”