Tact/ile: The Pleasure Object
Natasha Alksnis
How might we redesign structures and objects found in the home to invite new engagement for the simulation of various interpersonal somatosensory interactions while in isolation?
Beyond the manifested design of a sex-toy door handle, The Pleasure-Object is a speculative work that explores new expressions of sexuality through fostering the normalization of self-sex and distanced partnered-sex facilitated through engagement with everyday objects, redesigned for pleasure, and retrofitted to common interior structures.
The Pleasure-Object considers the ergonomics of sexuality or “ergoerotics”, the deeply therapeutic and educational properties of touch, as well as human haptic compulsions as factors that can inform design to solve for negative coping behaviors and mental effects when the body is restricted from performing in a familiar, normalized or desired way.
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INSIGHT
Social distancing and isolation measures for the prevention of the spread of COVID-19 as enforced by governing bodies or through self-imposed regulation have resulted in a negative impact on mental health due to a lack of physical social interaction, contrasting or challenging individually respective, previously perceived, normal levels. These measures have had disproportionate effects on populations with pre-existing experiences of societal exclusions. The specific social interaction which this project is concerned with is the intimate physical relationship cultivated by two sexual beings and the negative impacts on mental health that result from the inability to engage in partnered intimacy and sex.
IDEA
The Pleasure-Object invites play and opens a door to new experiences of self and distanced-partnered pleasure. A web-browser based tool built upon a discriminative code written in JavaScript allows users to develop individual or collaborative forms, “pleasure pieces” custom fabricated in silicone to replace traditional hardware. Upon receiving and installing the new hardware, users can self sooth or explore intimacy as the amorphous forms are pleasurable at a basic haptic level and sexually, leveraging placement and form for the stimulation of erogenous areas. Forms can be shared on an online database inviting community engagement through forums, while access to a library of anonymously saved shapes serves to expand the visual vocabulary of pleasure as designed by a community.
IMPACT
Physical distancing measures will eventually see an end, but the behaviors we have become accustomed to during this time: a hyper awareness of hygiene, personal space, and of any anxiety or discomfort interacting with other humans, have potentially lasting ramifications in our society and in some individuals. The Pleasure Object is a speculative design piece that proposes the redesign of fixtures and hardware in the home. This invites intimate interactions that supplement a desire or need for somatosensory comforts and compound the experience of the home as a safe space when experiencing willed or forced isolation and societal exclusion.
Natasha Alksnis
Working as an artist with an academic background in arts criticism, philosophy and cognitive sciences, my design practice is primarily critical. Design is language, and as such, a fundamental mode for information inference and transmission. I am interested in interaction design and shaping individual and collection perceptions and experiences of reality.