Annabelle Schneider

PRESENCE IN BED is an installation that offers an immersive experience, placing the physical and the digital into dialogue through a material object, a bed, linked to a spiritual journey in virtual reality. The bed may be the only place that we will be able to call home in the future. In an era of instability and constant change, the bed serves both as an object designed for rest and as an essential place to reconnect to the self. Temperature-reactive sheets serve as canvases that capture the presence of absence. Digital human traces are made permanent through textured image transfers on pillows. Hand-woven emergency foil blankets adjust themselves to a comfortable temperature and serve as protective capes for both body and space. PRESENCE IN BED employs virtual reality as a medium that triggers spiritual introspection. It reveals human body traces—blood, hair, skin, sweat, bacteria—that are associated with voice affirmations and evocative sounds designed to inspire a spiritual experience that reminds us to be present.