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

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