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17-25 October 2026

Proximate Intimacies

A collective sound experience

Hosted by Laura Papke in collaboration with Harm Belt

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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
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18:00
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18:00
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What happens when your interactions with other people become audible? Come by and find out by immersing yourselves in a soundscape that takes shape as you move and relate to one another.

Context

We do not encounter one another as isolated bodies. We come into being through our entanglements with other bodies, materials, technologies, and environments. These relations are constantly shifting, continously 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 these encounters. With the growing use of these technologies within systems of surveillance and control, their influence on these conditions is not always perceptible.

Concept

Proximate Intimacies makes these relations perceptible through an interactive installation in which interactions between people are translated into spatial sound. A depth-sensing camera captures how people move in relation to one another, while a digital modular synthesizer uses the movement data to shape the soundscape.

As participants respond to what they hear, their movements feed back into the sound, creating a feedback loop between bodies, sound, and system. Through this loop, people may become more aware of how they relate to one another, as well as how the sensing technology influences the interaction. 

Becoming more aware of these relations may encourage people to move and respond differently. In doing so, they can explore, question, and change the patterns that emerge between them.

Programme

Throughout DDW, Proximate Intimacies will be activated through encounters with other artistic practices in a series of public performative experiments. The full programme will be revealed in the coming weeks.


Sunday 18 October ⎢ Site Specific V by Death Proof Project ⎢ Performance
Every 30 minutes between 11:30–14:00 & 15:00–17:30 ⎢ Last activation at 17:00

Tuesday 20 October ⎢ Site Specific V by Death Proof Project ⎢ Performance
Every 30 minutes between 14:30–17:30 ⎢ Last activation at 17:00


Site Specific V by Death Proof Project

Two dancers, attached to themselves and to the environment, transform through different faces of touch, violence, support and need.

Site Specific is a choreographic frame adaptable to many situations and locations. This dance duet is made to be performed and recorded at different places, challenging its structure and transforming its meaning, making it a different physical and emotional experience each time.

Within Proximate Intimacies, Site Specific V explores what happens when a choreography about the relation between two bodies encounters a technological environment that senses and responds to it.

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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

Artistic Direction & Sound Composition Laura Papke
Co-Creation & Computer Vision Algorithm Design Harm Belt
Technical Assistant Laura Delgado Rusli
Movement Research Anne Sandee, Lisa Kiesgen, Laura López Ferrer, Ro-Mí Pouw, Paula Helge, Ana Paula Lemus Payiatsou
Composition & Sound Design Mentoring Julie Østengaard

Partners

Sponsored by Proximate Intimacies
Sponsored by Proximate Intimacies