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

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

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

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