Category: Collaborations

Awards, Collaborations, Interfaces, Phase 2

INTIMAL App© Showcase at The Studio, May 25th

INTIMAL App©, by Ximena Alarcón, 2021. All Rights Reserved.

As a result of the UNLOCK project, awarded to Ximena Alarcón by The Studio Recovery Fund, and in collaboration with Liliana Rodríguez and Kieran Harte, we will showcase the results of testing and developing further the INTIMAL App©.

We will demonstrate how we have developed the INTIMAL App© to allow the user to connect with others through their walking and breathing patterns as they listen to  stories collected from Colombian migrant women living in Europe. Other five projects funded by The Studio Recovery Fund, will be part of this showcase on 25th of May, 11am – 3pm.

Here you can read the program.

Here you can book your free ticket for the event.

The Studio, Bath Spa University’s Enterprise and Innovation Hub

All welcome!

Intimal App© is a mobile phone application developed by Ximena Alarcón that invites people to listen to their “migratory journeys”, by walking in their surroundings, to sense place and sense presence, alone and with others across distant locations.  

The app senses users’ walking rhythms to be sonified and perceived as breathing. When used collectively, people can hear each others’ walking patterns as “breathing”, feeling embodied emotional telepresence. Within the journey the app reveals excerpts of stories of migration, that might trigger a response from the user, building the path with words and memories, as relations emerge and connect in an exercise of shared memories.

Collaborations

The Studio breathes

Happy to have collaborated this year with the artist Dave Webb while doing my residency at The Studio. Inspired by the INTIMAL experience of breathing as form of telepresence he created this work:

In Dave’s words:

“The Studio Breathes is an art and technology experience, made for you: the residents, staff and guests at The Studio. It was made in response to the fact that, for good reasons, the studio has not been open as a place for regular collective presence. The concept is that, whether working remotely, or in person, you can become present at the studio by capturing and sending your breathing to the studio, where it can be combined with the breathing of others and visualised. 

Breathing connects body and mind in profound ways. As you become aware of your breath, it will change. This change affects your body and this subsequently changes your state of mind. Outside the body, your breath is ephemeral and insubstantial. The Studio Breathes lets you employ your breathing to centre yourself, and to use it to close the distance between you, other residents, and the studio itself where the breaths come together to create something new and generative. 

A mobile web app invites you to become aware of your breathing, by tracing on the screen as you breathe. This unfamiliar action helps you to think about the speed and depth of your breath. Reflections and prompts, provided by fellow resident Ximena, are animated to help you use this mindful moment to think about the opportunity created by a day at the studio. You then capture your breathing rhythm by once again tracing your breathing on the screen. The breathing rhythm is sent to the studio as data, where it is joined with that of others to be visualised on a screen in the foyer. The studio visualisations create a new, emergent rhythm, generated by the interplay of the present breathers from the last few hours. While this is only visible at the studio, a simple joint visualisation is included in the web app, and a fully web based virtual studio version of the visuals is planned.”

To take part, use your mobile phone to visit 

http://the.studiobreathes.org/

Thanks to Dave to invite me to collaborate in this beautiful project!