Macabre yet strikingly beautiful images of skeleton couples have been produced by two Japanese art students.Ayako Kanda and Mayuka Hayashi used a CT scanner and X-ray machine to photograph four couples in intimate embraces - but the results are not in the least bit cuddly.While the photographs might be a simple extension of medical X-rays, they paint an intimate yet eerie picture of human relationships.The students, from Musashino Art University, Japan, said: ‘X-ray images usually show the finite nature of our bodies composed only of matter.’‘But these couples' portraits reveal a pulse that isn’t normally seen.’The duo won a prize in the recent Mitsubishi Chemical Junior Designer Awards for their stark compositions according to Japanese art and culture blog, Spoon & Tamago.They explained on the Mitsubishi Chemical awards website that they wanted to ‘eliminate the information of two people,’ and get to the bare bones of a relationship, highlighting the 'pulse' between a couple.The artists didn't want to dwell on sentiment like more traditional portraits.Many couple-centred photographs focus on the way two lovers look at each other,but in this new installation, they concentrated solely on the position of the bodies.While the pair are not the first to exploit X-ray machines for art they were interested in the way bones ‘overlap’ between the two transparent bodies.The artists added that the images manage to be both familiar and unusual and are perhaps  compelling because they strip away all the individual characteristics of couples to dwell on the mechanics of the human body.(dailymail.co.uk)ANN.Az