Virtual girlfriend as art my ass.

It’s simple to behold — a single mattress, tucked into a dark, curtained back room of the showcase space. On it: a lithe brunette. She’s perfectly quiet, but once you sit or lie down, she responds to your every move. Lie on your back, she snuggles up right next to you in a log position. Curl up in the fetal position, she spoons. The only hitch: She’s 2-D. ‘Yeah, you can’t feel the girl. That’s the thing,’ Burrows explained as he demonstrated his invention, an “infrared sensitive” light projection (meaning it reacts, and the projected woman moves, based on an infrared sensor) called INBED. ‘Still, it’s so nice if you’re tired and worn out to have someone to curl up with.’ (Emphasis mine)

Shudder. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg:

Burrows suggests his new alternative to a full-body pillow or (ugh) blow-up doll could provide late-night comfort for traders, lawyers, or any other single guy in Manhattan who simply works too hard to keep a girlfriend.

Just…wow. Some are defending this as a simple art project addressing intimacy and loneliness, but Burrows seems to have created this – and is blatantly pitching it – not as art, but seriously as an adequate substitution for a woman. Not okay.
Via Boing Boing. (h/t to reader Austin)