TELEMATIC BEDS
Telematic Dreaming by Paul Sermon is an installation which connects two geographically separated beds via ISDN line (the project was first shown in 1992.) From the project website:
“Telematic Dreaming is an installation that exists within the ISDN digital telephone network. Two separate interfaces are located in separate locations, these interfaces in themselves are dynamic installations that function as customized video-conferencing systems. A double bed is located within both locations, one in a blacked out space and the other in an illuminated space. The bed in the light location has a camera situated directly above it, sending a live video image of the bed, and a person (”A”) lying on it, to a video projector located above the other bed in the blacked out location. The live video image is projected down on to the bed with another person (”B”) on it. A second camera, next to the video projector, sends a live video image of the projection of person “A” with person “B” back to a series of monitors that surround the bed and person “A” in the illuminated location. The telepresent image functions like a mirror that reflects one person within another persons reflection
Compare this to the Sensing Beds, created in 2003 as an ITP student project:
“Sensors located in one mattress pad track the position of its occupant and transmit that data to the other bed where the position data is used to activate heating pads at the same coordinates. Each sleeper thus feels the ghostly warmth of the absent partner’s body in the other bed.”
The prototype featured two benches instead of mattresses. (There is also a short paper about the project.)