INTIMAL App // Ximena Alarcón

The INTIMAL App is a mobile phone application that invites people to listen to their “migratory journeys”, by walking in their surroundings, to sense place and sense presence, alone and with others across distant locations.

The INTIMAL App synchronously senses users’ walking rhythms, in different locations, to be sonified and perceived as breathing: an embodied telepresence. Within the journey, the app also reveals excerpts of stories of migration that might trigger a response from the listener, who can record their voices and be heard by others who are walking: building a path with words and memories, as relations emerge between voices and sound frequencies.

In this SLOMOCO microresidency I aim to develop a feasible artistic-technological workflow that helps me to advance independently in the features of the mobile INTIMAL App©, and to further develop my team. I would like to better understand Gait data that I have collected in a Motion Capture Lab, its possibilities regarding the sense of agency, towards the creation of a Machine Learning model. Following five proposed steps, in my current development, namely: 1) Recording of Gait Data; 2) Data Analysis; 3) Machine Model development; 4) Sonification; 5) Programming in the mobile App environment, I would like to show what I have developed and receive advice to fill gaps in such a process. Eventually, I would like to achieve results in an efficient way, using the resources I can access to, as an independent artist.