Feeling Presence Through Absence

An alternative way of connection between a distant couple. Business travelers feel more lonely than other kind of travelers. Specially when they are sentimentally attached with another person at home. Phone calls,   e-mail or on-line video conferencing are not engaging enough to carry a meaningful conversation, as they only straight forward verbal communication.  The emotional part of the message is lost in the process. How can alternative ways of connection be created when more and more business travelers spend nights away from their beloved ones? Using the hotel bed as a communication platform, hotel guests can feel closer to their loved ones receiving non verbal messages, through heat and light to “feel” their significant ones closer to the traveler, in their own hotel bed. The hotel bed is covered with PHILIPS Lumalive material, a fabric that integrates electronic components such as LEDs and, for this project, heating elements. The person at home streams video through a web cam placed on top of the bed . The video feed is translated into a signal of light and heat, so the guest can perceive the distant loved one in his or her own bed. Making a feeling of presence of this particular person when it is absent.

This Project was developed for Philips Lumalive during the program IM Conceptual Design on Context at Design Academy Eindhoven in 2009.