11. IMPLICATIONS AND APPLICATIONS

Idea + Desire + General Thoughts

I started this week knowing that my initial idea about working with the moon as my basic theme (presented on my documentation of week 1) would no longer be interesting enough for me. All the techniques I learned through the course and even my individual inspirations for each week brought out a long-term desire and ongoing practice of mine to try to discuss the human body, how it moves, how it behaves in regards to sensations and rationality, opposing them at times and at other moments brnging them together. In order to establish this discussion on this particular problem I decided to work with the concept of skin.

Skin, because it's feeling and because it expresses and reacts. Because it allowed me to experiment with certain techniques Fabricademy taught that I felt more drowned towards and because it is our first layering of tissues. Because without skin I doubt there would ever be Textiles. Because it is human and allows technology into the human core.

As always on my creative process I find it super helpful to start via Brainstorming based on a central main word:

In a first dynamic led by Anastasia at Fab Lab Barcelona we defined which techniques we felt comfortable with and which ones we wanted to experiment further with (from the ones we acquired in Fabricademy).

Knowing my general personal concepts based on the idea of skin and having considered the techniques I wanted to envolve in my process to achieve my project I was able to shortly define what it would consist on:

The W's (more or less)

On a second class dynamic we started developing answers to the main questions one must ask oneself when planning any project in order to organise one's thoughts, and this allowed me to clearly put forward the following aims of my project:

• Main concepts around project (this was a lovely thing we did, we each gave all the others one word aorund their sketch of projects): performance, emotional, spiritual, movement, folklore, skin, multicultural audience, ritual.

• What: material development that will generate a garment to be used in a performance installation, an art piece led by a performer to function as an installation during a certain time-frame.

• Who: this is intended to the art public, a public interested in culture that has a "repertoire" of art and performance through which they would build a more consistent critique of the performance in their minds.

• Why: this piece is ultimately meant to generate thought on the audience's mind about materiality and how to connect its concepts and even its production processes back to the idea of being human. It is suppose to conscientiate people about how in fact they are to take responsability of how they relate to materials. It is supposed to bring the idea of technology and technological fabrication of materials, especially textile materials of course, closer to languages spoken by humans. It is to humanize the comprehension of simingly foreign methodologies and materials generated by them though sensorial experiences.

• How (to be detailed on the Chronogram Plan): the idea is to generate my performance based on the interaction of the performer together with the material I create using the techniques established. After going through a deeper referencing and researching first moment I will be ablet to start defining how to biofabricate materials that react using the concept of wearables, e-textiles, soft robotics and skin electronics. My experimentation of different techniques aiming to make an intelligent second skin will allow me to have a material to then manipulate using some textile scaffolding techiniques and 3D Modelling. The result will be a garment with and about which the performance will be generated. Of course this process is not exactly linear as I will need to bring certain aspects of the performance such as the movement of the performing body into the making process of my material.

• Where: I am to have the performance happen in Barcelona initially. I would ideally have take place at Mercat de les Flors

• When: by the end of Fabricademy's 6 months my aim is to have a materialised garment with which to start developed a performance. The performance would only come out after a period of 3 to 6 months floowing this moment, considering that this process will likely involve tweeking my garment and re-adapting it to the new unforeseen needs that always show up last minute when working with performance.

Detailed Chronogram Plan

1. Writing a Manifesto for my project.
2. Referencing, researching, getting lost online and within techniques and finding my way back from it, so that in the end I understand more thoroughly what could possibly change a material's behaiviour. (use reference sources list bellow)
3. Study full analogue circuits and in what way the results react to the variation of the inputs.(Talk to Victor #weloveVictor)
4. Define which "input" the body can give to material that I will in fact work with.
5. Find some recipes and methodologies to create material that would allow me to start testing, choose which to use with the guidance of Anastasia and Cecilia. (also refer to useful links in my biofabricating documentation).
6. Start 1st tests.
7. Evaluate the results of those, test them on the body, try out how the performance would be in regards to these first tests.
8. Create my own version of the recipes and methodologies, manipulating the originally tested ones in regards to how they felt while trying with body.
9. Start 2nd Round of tests.
10. Evaluate the results of those, test them on the body, hopefully see some more effects being achieved through material when in contact with the performer's manipulation of it.
11. Start developing final materials and an eventual 3rd round of tests depending on the results in #10.
12. Go back to 3D Modelling and deisgning, mindful of the results achieve to this point.
13. Start applying the larger versions of material developed to sketches of a final garment.
14. Test this on the body.
15. Go back to designing and potentially remake some of the materials.
16. Achieve a rather final version of my experimentation applying my material to a garment to be worn in the performance installation.

References

Pure Human, by Tina Gorjanc, as well as her other projects.

"The Pure Human project was designed as a critical design project that aims to address shortcomings concerning the protection of biological information and move the debate forward using current legal structure.

Furthermore, the project explores the ability of the technology to shift the perception of the production system for luxury goods as we know it and project its implementation in our current commercial system. The final outcome consists of a range of conceptual commercial leather products cultivated from extracted human biological material."

Swalloable Perfurme, by Lucy McRae, as well as her other projects.

"What happens if we could eat technology? Does the body become the technology?"

"Body as Atomiser – This is a story where technology is the size of a blood cell and our skin is programmed to emit a biologically enhanced fragrance. Swallowable Parfum was developed alongside synthetic biologist, Sharef Mansy, where the body is turned into an atomizer and the skin sweats cosmetics.

Part of the Swallowable Parfum project was a performance that used the gallery as a laboratory and place to prototype scientific “What if’s”. Immersive experiences, like these engage the public and provide a platform to explore the emotional impact technologies have and how scientific breakthroughs are slowly transforming the body."

Liquified, by Bart Hess, as well as his other projects.

"Hess is renowned for his fascination with reinventing the depiction of the body through the veil of technological advancement. This fascination took shape in his research series named Liquified. The material research emerged partly after a desire to use the Liquify filter in Photoshop, where the body appears to melt into a physical reality.

Hess developed a wide range of slime-like substances, varying in color and thickness. The materials were draped on a model creating semitransparent blobs and draperies that blur the line between material and skin. Hess captured his new, liquid body in a series of images and performances which got noticed by photographer Nick Knight who shot the material for the album cover of Lady Gaga’s Born This Way."

Between the Earth and the Audience, by Moon Ribas

"Moon Ribas, a cyborg artist from Barcelona, creates works that meld artistic innovation and technological revolution. Initially drawn by a desire to feel movement in different ways during her university choreography studies, she has long sought to challenge the current confines of human perception as well as present understandings of our own senses."

Sources for further referencing

• V&A Archive
• Materfad
• Aesop Channel in Vimeo

Presentation

Presentation • Gabriela Lotaif • Fabricademy

Further Definition

The further definition of my project, and especially what inputs and outputs will be used can be found at the intial documentation of my final project.