Tuesday, December 29, 2009

PAPER SLASHER!!!

Being away from home for Christmas this year, we thought it was a great idea to put up a tree and trying to decorating it using only items with what we had around the apartment. I ended up cutting some paper snowflakes as a side thing but they turned out so well that we put them all over the tree. It only took me 15 mins to cut out a ton of these little intricate snowflake-rs.

Its so easy, as simple as folding a small 3" x 3" square of paper in half, and than in half again, and then start slashing. I tried to not think so much about how to cut them, I just went with it and that seemed to work much better.

Dylan




























Sunday, August 30, 2009

Light Play


In his Fall 2008 fashion Show, "Readings", Hussein Chalayan used hundreds of concealed Swarovski crystals appearing from nowhere to completely change the image of a dress. The laser diodes were integrated into the garments, illuminating the Swarovski crystals and extended the dresses visually into space. The explosion of laser rays and the light effects on crystals came to life. Laser lights were reflecting on mirrors placed around the room and on the mobile platform. His performance can be compared to work of Bauhaus artist Moholy-Nagy "light play". In his abstract film project of 1932, he showed lights reflecting on mirrors and a moving machine like a Kinetic Sculpture, made of perfect geometrical shapes. Moholy-Nagy saw himself as a scientist. “There was also evidence of a class-ridden society where the biological forces of life failed to unfold”. People at this point felt the need to fit the societal mold and therefore individual identity was often not explored, leading to a stalemate with personal evolution. In Chalayan’s hand, the dress becomes emblematic and layered with meanings. Hussein Chalayan examines the notion of celebrities as objects of desire, and their lost of natural internal beauty. In "Readings", the stunning light/laser radiated from the dress that mimics the movement of the wearer, and reflected his/her pure internal nature. Guy Debord opened The society of spectacle: “in societies where modern conditions of production prevail all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into representation.” He characterized modern life as a world colonized by false desires and illusions. The twenty-first century’ social pressure pushed the limit of creating identity, and became a society of spectacle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3gZZCm6Thg
http://www.wallpaper.com/fashion/hussein-chalayan-video/2042

"Light Play"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNt39WJQqjg

Friday, August 21, 2009

Philips Design



“Philips Design” has prototyped garments that incorporate electronics into fabrics and clothes under project SKIN which examines the future integration of sensitive materials. Developed by Philips Research Technologies, the light-emitting-diode (LED) is a semiconductor diode that emits light when an electric current is applied. In the 1990s, Philips design deepened an ongoing research project emerging trends and social shifts in the area of emotional sensing. The “Bubelle Dress” is an exploration into the emotive technology and the ways in which the body and the surrounding environment can use pattern and color change to interact and predict the expressive state. When “Bubelle” has been introduced to the world in September 2006, it got the top spot in “Inventions Of the Year” list from Time magazine in the category Fashion.

Emotion and personality

With this promising project, Philips Design’s "Bubelle Dress" demonstrates how electronics can be integrated into clothing to express the emotions and personality of the wearer. Surrounded by a delicate 'bubble' construction, the wearer can see the reflection of his internal feelings traduced in the illumination and color change of patterns exposed on the dress. "Bubelle" is therefore designed to respond to an individual's body and create a visual representation of emotions rather than just being 'on' or 'off'. For instance, the dress behaves differently depending on who is wearing it, and therefore exhibits a completely nonlinear behavior.

Emotive technology

Each emotion you might experience, such as stress, fear or arousal will affect the body's temperature and consequently, the sweat levels that generate the light which changes the pattern and color of the garment. One could program the material so it turned red for anger or stress, or green when calm. Using biometric sensing technology, the temperature receptors in the skin not only register whether the areas are cold or hot, but the intensity.

Relation to space and environment

The Philips Design project explores the space between the body and the near environment conceiving dresses that blush and shiver. It looks to emotional and physiological sensing, as a way of exploring new indirect ways of communicating in contemporary relationships.

Go see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRX-3DDBow0

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Electric Skin


Suzi Webster is a Canadian Multimedia artist. In 2006, she created Electric Skin, made of Elumin8 printed LEDs, silk and sensors. The responsive garment turns the breath of the wearer into pulses of light. The wearer's inhalation and exhalation activate a breath sensor that dims and brightens the printed LED on the item of clothing. The wearer is immersed in the electric aqua light. Other viewers see the intimate breathing of the wearer as slow pulses of light on the exterior of the garment. The development of the interactive art piece is manifested in an installation that illustrates how performance can be used to inform the design of interactive clothing within an experiential environment. Electronic textile refers to a material that incorporates capabilities for sensing, communication, power transmission, and symbolic meanings as being equally important as functions. Her approach entices the viewer to become more aware of his environment, space and relations to others.


Inner -Outer

Electric Skin is a combination of object and performance that investigates divisions between the internal/external and mental/physical, and creates an experience of a luminal space which is neither inside nor outside, but is a third space in-between. The wearer of Electric Skin is connected to a power cable, and while the breath produces a seductive light, it also creates a threat and unease. The inhalation and exhalation of the wearer activates a breath sensor that dims and brightens the printed LED lights of the garment. Electric Skin presents the idea of making clothes that are bio-responsive in some way to either internal or external stimulation. The artist wanted to create a quiet space away from the Medias stimulation around us, but her work turned out to be intense to wear with the voltage of electricity coursing though the garment. Webster’s art installation shows that technology has an impact on human sensing and brings the wearer to an alter state of unconsciousness.

http://www.suziwebster.org/electricskin/index.html
And Go see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQu-AbZHsl0

MG

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Fashion designers as identity makers





In the book "The art of self-invention, image and identity in popular Visual Culture", the author explains that “much of popular culture reinforces the importance we place on physical appearance as indicative of identity.” This idea is decoded by the use of clothing. The power of dress demonstrates the importance to communicate the differences in terms of nationality, social status, and gender. New social and sexual identities investigate the complexities of contemporary culture which are translated in Hussein Chalayan’s garments. In the world of imagery, representation and subjectivity, woman becomes a desirable image. In the late 20th century, the androgynous figure long-ledged, small-breasted, with a slender silhouette is the social norm. The frail skeleton silhouette seen epitomized in current Medias is considered a Western social norm. Human activities are controlled by the present consumer culture, leading to patterns that may differ from personal views and opinions on the external world. Thinking about identity is a useful technique for shaping the world to our liking. It also makes us more vulnerable then fashion commodities as sources of identity. What are the social consequences of using material goods to display identity? Historically, possession of goods has been a reliable guide to social status. The status of embodied experiences within these processes continues to focus on object-body.

In 2005, Hussein Chalayan showed in Turkey his film "The Absent Presence" which displayed the relationship of the real and the imagined with a series of collected clothes and deformed crystallized garments. The artist treated in a 3D manipulation a DNA extraction process from the clothes collected from unknown people and an anthropological evaluation. This cross-disciplined installation with filmic images and sculpture reveals the approach of Chalayan to the dilemma of identity. Chalayan’s multi-layered narratives are sculpted into neo-mythological and futuristic visual rituals.

In this project he deals with the distressed issue of identity as DNA, and its reflection in the geopolitical situation. The artist points out how certain identities can or cannot adapt to new environments.


MG

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Electrifying art: Atsuko Tanaka




Born in Osaka, on February 10, 1932, Atsuko Tanaka attended several local art schools such as the Art Institute of Osaka Municipal Museum of Art and the Kyoto Municipal College of Art. In 1955, she joined the Gutai group, an avant-garde Post-War artists' movement in Japan. “Gutai” is broken down into two words; “gu” referencing tool and “tai” meaning body, with other translations relating to “concreteness” or “embodiment”. The artists’ collective ignored oppositional categories like Western and non-Western, traditional and modern. In the Gutai Manifesto of 1956, Jiro Yoshiahara wrote: “These objects are in disguise and their materials such as paint, pieces of cloth, metals, clay or marble are loaded with false significance by human hand and by way of fraud, so that, instead of just presenting their own material, they take on the appearance of something else. […] Gutai art does not change the material but brings it to life.” The Gutai Manifesto expressed a fascination with the beauty that arises when things become damaged or decayed. The beliefs of the Japanese artistic group had a worldwide impact from the late 1950s to the early 1970s.

In 1956, Atsuko Tanaka created the Electric Dress, made of cords, incandescent light bulbs and neon tubes covered with red, blue, yellow and green enamel paint that flashed every two and a half minutes. It took as long as one year to realize and was considered one of the masterpieces of this century. The art piece was a combination of the traditional Japanese kimono and modern industrial technology. Her inspiration for her signature work was from a pharmaceutical advertisement illuminated by neon lights. The Electric Dress was a response to the sudden changes in the material conditions of the everyday life in the fifties. Tanaka often used general daily life objects such as textiles, door bells, and light bulbs. Finding influence in everyday life objects, she instead proposed a radical approach to conceptualize her ideas. In "Paragraphs on Conceptual Art", Sol LeWitt explains: “In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” Most conceptual art can deliberately be controversial in so far as it strives to challenge and question the viewer what is traditionally known about art. This form of art examines the involvement of the spectator and his reactions to these conceptualists adeas. Experimentation and innovation became fundamental to her artistic practice. In the 2000s, her work was displayed at the Grey Art Gallery, in New York City, and then at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery in Vancouver. Both focused on Tanaka's Gutai period, showing videos and documentation of the movement. A team of professional took a month to reconstruct the Electric Dress for the exhibitions. Her work is part of important public collections, including that of New York's Museum of Modern Art.
MG

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Origami Heart / New York Fashion Week


Laser Cut






Some of my laser cut work....MGX...and MG IS DEAD hanger!

Rooftop shoot - Brooklyn










We decided to do a little bit of a fun photo shoot on top of our building in Brooklyn. We shot some random pieces that we have made during the past months.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Genie Awards


MG at the 29th Annual Genie Awards in Canada. Nominated for "Achievement in Costume Design" Who is KK Downey?