Overview

Between 2018 and 2019, I developed The End of Emotional Privacy as part of my Master’s in Advanced Interaction at IAAC. The project explored how empathy could be amplified through technology, creating a bodysuit that translated emotions into real-time heat feedback — allowing happiness, sadness, anxiety, and fear to be physically experienced — paired with an interactive p5.js visualization that made the process both visible and tangible. What began as a speculative design thesis caught the eye of my director and was selected for Global Grad Show in Dubai, later refined into a second prototype exhibited at the Design Museum of Barcelona. The work went on to gain press coverage in El País, a TV3 documentary, and local/national news, sparking public debate on empathy, surveillance, and the monetisation of emotional data.

Context & Challenge

In a climate of increasing surveillance, corporations already collect our personal data to predict what we want and when we want it. This project speculates on a future where even our emotional states could be monitored, manipulated, and monetised.

Guiding questions:

• What if empathy could be treated as a new sense?

• Could technology help us amplify empathy by allowing us to physically feel others’ emotions?

• And what risks would arise if emotional data were commercialised?

In this infographic there's a bit more info on the process

Concept & Approach

The project began from the statement: “Emotions are heat.”

Drawing from Lisa Feldman Barrett’s work on constructed emotions and Lauri Nummenmaa’s research on “bodily maps of emotions,” I explored how emotions manifest as localized changes in body temperature — sadness cooling us down, anxiety warming us up.

While most emotion-sensing technologies rely on heart rate, facial recognition, or brain waves, I focused on infrared (IR) sensors to track body heat. These values were translated into warmth on the back of a bodysuit, acting as an “empathy amplifier.”

This diagram visualises how I recreated the logic of a new “sense” using hardware:

• Receptor: An Adafruit AMG8833 IR thermal camera acts as the sensor, detecting body heat.

• Impulse → “Brain”: The readings are sent to an Adafruit Feather M0 Adalogger, which processes the signal — mimicking how a biological brain interprets impulses.

• Stimulus → Skin: The microcontroller then activates 16 heat pads (built with conductive thread, 20Ω resistance), generating warmth on the surface of the bodysuit.

• Brain ↔ Skin loop: Just like in the human body, the “skin” receives and transmits impulses, completing the sensory simulation.

This abstraction maps the journey from perception → signal → processing → sensation, showing how empathy was reimagined as a sixth sense.

This schematic breaks the concept down into the electronic detail for a single heat pad:

• The AMG8833 sensor connects via SDA/SCL to the Arduino, sending the temperature values.

• The Arduino outputs a PWM signal to control the amount of current flowing to the heat pad.

• A MOSFET (IRF520) acts as a switch, regulating the power supply to the pad.

• The resistors (100Ω and 100kΩ) manage safe voltage distribution, while the 12V / 1A source powers the heating element.

• The coiled line (6Ω) represents the conductive thread heat pad, which warms up when current passes through.

This explains how one pad is controlled electronically — multiplied across the suit, it forms the full “empathy amplifier.”

Process

The first prototype was built in 2018 as part of my Master’s at IAAC and later exhibited at Global Grad Show in Dubai. At that stage, the bodysuit relied on more than a hundred embedded wires and sixteen DIY heat pads stitched with conductive thread onto lace fabric. It looked fragile, but it worked: when someone stood in front of the IR sensor, their body heat triggered a thermal response that the wearer could feel on their back. This version was raw and experimental, but it proved the concept — empathy could be translated into a physical sensation.

By 2019, I needed a sturdier version that could survive the touch of hundreds of visitors during an exhibition. For the second prototype, shown at the Design Museum of Barcelona (DHUB) during Mobile Week, I abandoned the lace base and embroidered the heated zones directly on cotton. This material not only transferred heat better but also felt safer and more robust. I used Karl Grimm conductive thread for wiring and silver-plated conductive thread to build custom heat pads.

The process wasn’t linear: I burned fabrics, broke multiple Arduinos, and briefly considered abandoning the DIY pads in favor of ready-made heating components. But pushing through these failures was key — in the end, I achieved a reliable, wearable system that visitors could safely touch and interact with.

Outcome & Impact

The result was an interactive empathy amplifier: a bodysuit capable of translating emotions into real-time heat feedback. Visitors could sense feelings like happiness, fear, sadness, or anxiety mapped directly onto the fabric.

To make the interaction clearer, I designed a real-time data visualization in p5.js projected on a nearby screen. As people stood in front of the sensor, they could not only feel the heat but also see the detected state:

• Sad (0–24ºC)

• Happy (24–27ºC)

• Anxious (27–55ºC)

• Fearful (55–80ºC)

For many, the experience was surprising, even unsettling. Some visitors described the warmth as comforting, while others felt exposed knowing their emotions were being “read” and stored. This duality was intentional: while the suit amplified empathy, it also hinted at a darker future where our most intimate feelings could be turned into data to be tracked, sold, or manipulated.

Press & Recognition

The project’s speculative dimension — bridging technology, empathy, and surveillance — attracted wide attention. It was exhibited internationally at Global Grad Show in Dubai (2018) and locally at the Design Museum of Barcelona (2019), where it ran for a full month.

It was later featured in the national newspaper El País, appeared on Catalonia’s national TV (TV3) in the show Marcians, episode Vigilància, soledat i Hugo Silva, and was covered by Barcelona’s local television and national news segments. These opportunities allowed me to share the work with diverse audiences, from design enthusiasts to the general public, sparking conversations about the consequences of emotional data becoming a new commodity.