Last Monday, I had a phone call with Agnes Giard to discuss my work, and yesterday, I received the pleasant surprise of seeing the text published in Libération, a well-known French newspaper. Agnes interviewed me in anticipation of the Arse Elektronika exhibition and conference happening next week in Vienna, where I will be showcasing my work and giving a lecture. I’m extremely excited about this event, as it’s been on my radar for the past two years. I’m also looking forward to reconnecting with friends in the field who will be presenting there as well.
You can find the original article below, and I will also provide an English translation:
“Creator of interactive, sometimes robotic, tactile tools, artist Laura A Dima has just developed a device for exchanging belly caresses. This work will be presented at the Austrian festival Arse Elektronika from March 6 to 9.
“In 2019, I fell in love with a man who touched me wonderfully. I adored his fingers. I made soft silicone molds of them and used them to create touch machines.” During the interview she gave to Libération, speaking about her lover, Laura A Dima lights up. Born in 1991 in Romania, this multidisciplinary artist creates works inspired by one obsession: touching people, making them touch each other. Her latest work, titled Bellies, centered on belly caresses, will soon be exhibited at Arse Elektronika (March 6-9, in Vienna)… Created in 2007, almost thirty years ago, this pioneering festival— the oldest event dedicated to alternative sextech defends the idea that sex drives innovation. “Everyone thinks technology is cold, devoid of emotion,” argues its creator, Johannes Grenzfurthner. “But no! Take Bellies, for example. This work aims to connect people, even strangers, as if they were skin-to-skin.”
Bellies is an installation made up of two individual boxes, each containing a belly prosthesis. The prostheses activate as soon as they sense a presence, inviting contact. When two people wear them simultaneously and press them against their abdomens, strange sensations flow between them. “These prostheses look like an alien organ or a pregnant belly,” comments Laura A Dima. “They allow for the exchange of bodily data, such as temperature, breathing, and heart rate. Technology is thus used to merge two distant bodies, with one feeling ‘pregnant’ with the other.”
Cyborg Grandmother
The idea for this device may trace back to her childhood. As a child, Laura A Dima grew up without her mother. She was about 5 years old when her parents divorced. “My mother practically disappeared,” she recalls. “I had only distant contact, through the phone, if even that. My work may be rooted in this desire to bring people closer.” Raised by her paternal family, Laura A Dima found refuge in the love of her grandmother. But this grandmother was “very special.” A long scar running vertically from below her navel to just under her chin crossed her body. “She was one of the first people in Romania to have such a surgery. They had placed a mechanical valve in her, and when I hugged her, I didn’t hear her heartbeat: I heard a metallic ticking.
For Laura A Dima, there is almost nothing separating the organic body from the artificial mechanisms that keep it alive. This is why, very quickly, her work as a young artist, freshly graduated from a school in Amsterdam, shifted toward the creation of prosthetics. In 2019, she fell in love with a man with magical hands, whose long fingers she molded to create the equivalent of silicone dildos. ‘I molded several fingers from both of his hands,’ she says. ‘I also made different molds of the same finger, like his index, to create the impression of variety. Then I implanted 1300 of these silicone finger prostheses on a heated rug so people could roll on it, lie on it, or simply caress it.’ The finger rug is placed in an enclosure so people can do as they wish, away from prying eyes, in complete privacy.
Distant Caresses
The work was a huge success, but the pandemic that erupted in 2020 forced the artist to work on different devices. How could one touch others during confinement? Laura A Dima turned toward robotic research. If humans had to keep their distance, why not create individual cabins allowing people not to phone each other, but to ‘telecaress’? Grafting a silicone finger onto a remotely controlled system, Laura A Dima invented a machine designed to stimulate the C tactile afferent fibers, which mediate the most intense sensations. Laura A Dima programmed her machine to reproduce the signature of what she calls ‘loving touch.’ To complicate the device, she added a consent button to her ‘loving touch machine’ so that users could interrupt the experience with a single finger movement. ‘The idea for a belly prosthesis came to me after that,’ she explains. ‘The belly is one of the most sensitive parts of the human body. So I created two interactive sculptures, equipped with sensors and motors, so that users could, by touching their prosthesis, send palpable messages while absorbing each other’s vital signs.’
The first versions of the device allowed people to see each other, more or less, through semi-transparent curtains. Laura A Dima quickly realized that this disturbed the experience. ‘To eliminate all cognitive biases, people had to “touch” each other blindly,’ she explains. Her machine became a strange tool for encounters. ‘Some people tried to find out who had moved them… Heterosexuals, for example, were astonished, face-to-face: “I was touched by a man?!” If a machine can get people to question their desires, I think that’s wonderful.'”