material intimacy is a multimedia installation that examines the integration of smartphones in users’ everyday lives. Evoking a bedroom-like space, it blurs and reframes what users usually expect from their handheld companions. The objects in this installation draw upon the tension between public and private, offsetting the familiarity of phone-centric behavior. By creating an environment that speaks to this tension, this project addresses the intimacy that is thriving between the phone and the user as well as the intimacy that is often thwarted between users on a person-to-person level. The exploration of proximity, fragmentation, and constant mediation within these two situations destabilizes the normalcy of everyday phone behavior in order to reveal the tangled dynamic between the virtual and physical sphere that users seem to navigate with ease.