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The Belonging Machine

This is an interactive experiment about closeness.

A word/object appears on a tiny, nostalgic Nokia screen; as you reach toward it, it begins to fall apart. The closer you get, the less of it remains. The word displayed on the LCD is تعلق, which means belonging in Farsi.

I always thought about the strange relationship between feeling that you belong to something, wanting something very badly, and getting too close to it. We usually think proximity creates intimacy. But sometimes (I would like to say most of the time), the opposite happens — the closer we get, the more fragile things, people, and places become.

Me on Nokia Nokia LCD

A few months ago, I had made this project using p5.js where, by moving the hand close to the camera, I scattered text that I was then projecting onto the wall. Finding out about electronic components and tiny screens (I love tiny things) got me wondering about rebuilding that idea and making a live machine out of it. Something that did not need a webcam, machine learning, or complexity. As transparent as it can be. Using a distance sensor that feels the closeness instead of computer vision.

The word does not disappear because you leave it alone. It disappears because you approach it. Consciously and unconsciously. There is something uncomfortable about that. The act of reaching toward something (that you want — or think you belong to) can also be the thing that destroys it.

I don’t know if belonging is something we find, or something we keep trying to reach. Maybe some things only remain whole at a certain distance.

It was very interesting to me that a lot of people found this interesting when I shared it on my Instagram. People from different backgrounds — engineers, artists, designers, and people who have nothing to do with any of these and are living a normal life.

Big shout out to Amir Mahdi — my little brother — for taking me by the hand into the world of electronics.

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