Christoph is a voice assistant that can grow in reality. Whenever we communicate with him/her, its body will inflate and expand, touching our bodies. The story is based on real-life experiences: Yang, as a new intern, moved into a capsule hotel in Shanghai and took Christoph with him. Each capsule can accommodate only one person and he was willing to share this space with Christoph.

This project tries to offer a new body and context to the voice assistant, trying to discuss the themes of intimacy, distance, and companionship in the space.

My research interest is that similar to gettin to know each other in a flatshare. Because everyone doesn’t know each other that well yet, at first everyone likes to stay in his or her room But eventually we all sit together on the couch and talk to each other, arms touching. This intimate physical contact that develops as we get to know each other fascinates me very much. In contrast to a flat share, you lie in such a small cabin in the capsule hotel, a bit lonely, you talk and interact with the voice assistant. It starts to get bigger, fills, occupies, divides this small space. When its air-stretched surface touches your skin, an intimate companionship is created.
In addition the gender stereotypes of the voice assistant have been intentionally eliminated through the naming of the project, the choice of materials and the design of the bag for carrying it. 

This project was exhibited at KI & WIR* Convention and was shown during Art & Tech Lecture at the Artificial Intelligence, Pan-Technology & Art Public Programm at the West Bund Museum Shanghai.