Massage Parlour is an interactive installation and performance by Asli Hatipoglu, staged as an unconventional massage salon where everyday assumptions about hygiene and personal boundaries are pushed to the point of exaggeration. Guests arrive expecting an ordinary massage, but are told there aren't enough paid workers to provide one, since human labour has become too expensive, so the parlour now offers "AI-instructed self-services." Led by a recorded fictional instructor, participants are guided into a self-led experience where they give and receive massage not to other humans but to yeast and bacteria, as part of jointly preparing a communal fermented drink.
Playing the fictional instructor, Hatipoglu serves guests drinks made through communal fermentation and uses the setting to ask whether traditional food practices that depend on direct bodily contact, whether with hands or feet, can still survive in the age of capitalism. Built in the visual language of a commercial spa, the work turns a familiar space of relaxation into a satirical reflection on the automation of care, the erasure of human labour from production, and the intimacy of sharing microbial life.
Since 2023, Massage Parlour has been presented in several iterations across Brussels, Glasgow and Plzeň.