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}}:: Sensing Beds ::{{

Together Elizabeth Goodman and I teamed up to build the Sensing Beds. The Sensing Beds domesticate communications devices by placing them in the bedroom. The beds mediate between two romantic partners who are not co-located by sensing body position in each bed and using a grid of small heating pads to warm the congruent points in the other bed. As an experiment in telepresence, they bridge the physical distance between two people who would normally share a bed, but find themselves sleeping apart. As an experiment in slow technology and emotional communication, they articulate usersí existing concerns about intimacy, trust and knowledge.

The Sensing Beds applies this concept to the ever-more-common phenomenon of the long-distance relationship through the emotionally meaningful site of the bed. The bed, which usually unites a couple, here displays the presence of a distant loved one through heat. Sensors located in one mattress pad track the position of its occupant. The position data is transmitted every five minutes through the internet to the other bed where heating pads are activated at the same coordinates. Each sleeper thus synchronously feels the ghostly warmth of the absent partner.
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::Further Web Documentation::
::Abstract PDF::
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