Intimacy in an Instrument

In recently watching Holly Herndon’s talk with Ableton, she mentioned an idea that stuck with me; the laptop is the most intimate instrument. In my current practice looking into new forms of instrumentation; this idea stuck out to me by the way Herndon analyzed intimacy in and on her laptop. She spoke of the, at the time, frowned-upon nature to bring a laptop to a gig as a main instrument and workspace whereas everyone else was using hardware. This mirrors my experience and disdain for music theory, why should this knowledge be the only standard for self expression? For my current research, this feels extremely relevant and informative to articulate the goal of my project. I feel my current work is almost paralleling this idea in the sense of; looking for intimacy in an instrument, a personal connection, a familiarity. In selecting a familiar object to view a new form of instrumentation I have in my mind, I subconsciously picked probably one of the most intimate objects I own; a duvet. It’s the first and last thing I see, hear, and touch when I go to sleep at night. If we’re analyzing the intimacy of an object, beddings check all the boxes. There’s both a sexual and emotional intimacy to a duvet; you cry there, you fuck there, and you dream there, it encases probably the most vulnerable moments most people will experience throughout their entire lives. Taking this almost subconscious connection to an object, what ability could that hold if it were turned into a proper electronic instrument?