Culturally Embedded Computing

We present a preliminary and ongoing study into intimate objects: technological devices for maintaining intimacy at a distance. We use the notion of critical technical practice to provide a theoretical framework on which to base our designs, building devices that differ from mass communication devices in three ways: they are for couples in a relationship to communicate with each other, not with everybody else, they are for a specific couple to use, not a generic couple, and they are for the transmission of specific intimate communication, not all-purpose communication. We present an overview of the study, give some examples of intimate object sketches produced by our subjects, and discuss questions posed by the study, particularly those concerning the generalizability of the results