besides connects two apartments. A person’s location, activity, and duration of stay are recorded in their apartment and transmitted to the other person’s apartment. There, the movement appears as an organic light projection made up of particles moving through the space. The representation does not show the person themselves, but rather their behavior.

If someone stays in one place for a long time, a visible artifact appears there. If the person moves around a lot, the projection becomes more restless as well. This creates a sense of presence without the need for constant active communication. The idea behind it: besides is not meant to replace physical closeness. Instead, it makes visible something that often becomes invisible in long-distance relationships—the casual awareness of everyday life.

Interaction

Slippers were designed to serve as the interface. They function as a natural part of the home: when worn, the system is active. When taken off, one’s own representation withdraws from the partner’s home.

This decision was important because besides is not meant to feel like just another device that you consciously turn on and operate. It is designed to work in the background and blend into everyday life as naturally as coming home itself.

For the prototype, we focused on the visual translation between two apartments. Using a local system, we simulated two different apartment floor plans: an input apartment and an output apartment.

In the input apartment, a figure was placed in various living areas, such as the sofa, bed, kitchen, or front door. This position was transferred to the output apartment and visualized there as a particle system. The challenge was to translate different floor plans in such a way that the person’s movement remained understandable.

The prototype demonstrated that position, activity, and duration of stay can be translated into an abstract yet legible representation. This creates not merely a technical display, but a spatial sense that the other person is there right now.