Designing for Virtual Touch: A Real-Time Co-Created Online Art Experience

"[i miss your touch]" is a web platform that allows people who are in separate locations to co-create a real-time artwork within a shared virtual environment. This platform enables a live collaboration to occur between two participants and PluginHUMAN (the artists). [i miss your touch] responds to participants? movements. PluginHUMAN affect, in real-time, live video streams from participants? webcams. Their affected movements are combined and displayed together, allowing participants to play, dance and make art in a shared virtual environment. This project launched as a rapid response to COVID-19 lockdown and physical distancing rules. Our approach to designing a novel, real-time interactive virtual art experience may benefit game designers and researchers who seek to: provide players with the experience of virtual touch; those exploring embodied play; designers who are providing co-creation opportunities for players; and those interested in the intersection of technology, art and play.