Skip to main content
17-25 October 2026

Proximate Intimacies

A collective experience in which relations between bodies become perceptible through sound.

Hosted by Laura Papke in collaboration with Harm Belt

Log in to save this programme item to a favourite list.

Login

Entrance fee

Free access

Event type

Exhibition

Accessibility

Tactile
Free wifi available
Toilets available
Partially wheelchair accessible
Wheelchair friendly toilet available

Opening hours

11:00
-
18:00
11:00
-
18:00
11:00
-
18:00
11:00
-
18:00
11:00
-
18:00
11:00
-
18:00
11:00
-
18:00
11:00
-
18:00
11:00
-
18:00
Bringing together sound, technology, and dance, the project takes the form of an interactive installation that invites visitors to move together, translating their interactions into a collective soundscape.

Context

We do not encounter one another as isolated bodies. We come into being through the entanglements with other bodies, materials, technologies, and environments. These relations are constantly shifting, affecting how we move, sense, behave, and respond to one another. As data-driven technologies become increasingly embedded in our everyday life, they actively participate in shaping the conditions of our encounters. With the growing use of these technologies within systems of surveillance and control, their influence on these conditions is not always visible or reciprocal.

Approach

Within Proximate Intimacies, these dynamics become tangible through sound. Participants’ movements are sensed and translated into an evolving soundscape, creating a feedback loop in which movement and sound continuously influence one another. The project invites visitors to recognise the patterns that emerge as they interact with one another and the technological system, creating space to question and renegotiate them.

Experience

Visitors encounter a circular, semi-enclosed space equipped with a motion-tracking camera and a spatial sound system. Subtle lighting and a translucent enclosure create a space that is both intimate and open. Up to three people can enter the space and engage with one another through movement. As participants begin to move, they discover how their interactions shape the soundscape in predictable and unexpected ways, inviting playful experimentation with different ways of moving and relating to one another.

Ready to visit?

Come to Dutch Design Week and make this project part of your visit.

Buy tickets
Participants of this exhibition

About Laura Papke in collaboration with Harm Belt

Proximate Intimacies is part of a larger research project in which Laura Papke and Harm Belt investigate what becomes possible when sound, movement, and motion tracking are brought into relation. Their interdisciplinary approach brings together scientific research, visual arts, contemporary dance, participatory design, and sound art, allowing these fields to continuously inform and influence one another.

Colofon

Project Lead, Concept & Artistic Direction, Sound Design Laura Papke
Co-Creator, Computer Vision Algorithm Designer Harm Belt
Technical Assistant Laura Delgado Rusli
Movement Research Anne Sandee, Lisa Kiesgen, Laura López Ferrer, Ro-Mí Pouw
Sound Design Mentoring Julie Østengaard

Partners

Sponsored by Proximate Intimacies
Sponsored by Proximate Intimacies