SIGGRAPH Asia 2025 Art Gallery
Hong Kong
Dec 2025
INVISIBLES: Presence Matters
SWCAC, Shenzhen
Jun - Aug 2025
VICINO (Italian for “close to”) investigates the fading role of human contact in an age of constant communication yet rare connection. Inspired by the neuroscience of affective touch, the work offers a space where interpersonal connection is made perceptible again through embodied interaction. As participants hold hands while the other hand remains grounded on conductive surfaces, the system captures nuanced bioelectrical signals coming from their hearts. Each moment of sustained contact triggers the growth of a visual tree, with branches and heartbeat-linked pulses blooming in shared silence. Neither a spectacle nor a tool, VICINO becomes a quiet interface for sensing one another’s presence outside verbal expression. The project emphasizes the poetic and relational potential of human proximity, turning bodily gestures into visual languages of empathy and resonance. It encourages audiences to slow down, reach out, and reimagine how connection can be felt in invisible, physiological ways.
VICINO unfolds through bodily contact, gradually triggering visual and auditory responses. Based on touch area, bioelectrical signals, and heartbeat data, the system generates a tree composed of particles. As the connection deepens, the tree grows, resonates, stabilizes, and eventually dissolves through separation. This process creates a touchdriven cycle of emotional connection.