Optical Laces performance and film

The Optical laces performance/ film was generated through a recent research project Perceiving Dress: Optical Laces which investigated the relationship between sensory and visual perception of a dress in movement. The dress is designed as a tool to extend the experience, perception and physical response of a dancer and has previously been exhibited as part of an installation in relationship to the garment.

The film seeks to immerse the viewer through the mediated context of film by tapping into experiential and embodied knowledge of dress and the heightened sensory aspects of the performance and the film. The research proposed that empathy and memory of materiality can re awaken lived tactile and kinesthetic experience through the active process of not only watching dress in film in a passive manner but by literally feeling and touching through vision.

The performance and film was produced from the dancers experience of the dress in collaboration with a film director and dancer. I worked as the artistic director of the film based on the findings of the research that uncovered the dancers experience of dress. The dress, performance and film were developed through an embodied methodology developed through practice based research. The research proposition was that clothing in performance possesses the ability to transcend time and space through embodied memory and experience even when viewed through the mediated context of film.

The film was shown Installation at the IFFTI conference 2015 and installations were shown across Florence alongside the conference. In Florence the work was exhibited large scale to explore the potential of viewers to become immersed through the performance of the garment in film alone. The works were selected through competitive peer review by an international panel of reviewers. As a result of the exhibit of the film the researchers work was published in article by Chiara, Frederico, Fashion Humanism, Vogue Italia, April 2015. N.776. p.110 and in "Firenze : Made in Tuscany" Spring 2015 issue. N.34 pp. 106-109 "Momenting the memento: Moda, Arte e Innovazione a Firenze by Marta Innocenti Ciulli. The researcher was also interviewed by Dobrila Denegri published in POLIMODAMAG.

The Optical Laces film has also been shown in a number of other contexts including; screening of ‘Experiencing Dress in Action Optical Laces’ at the Shaping (un)common grounds ArchinText symposium, in Design films: Embodied Interaction Research, Techniques strand at TUE Eindhoven, Netherlands, a screening in Design Fragments, Australian Centre for Moving Image (ACMI), Federation Square, Melbourne, Australia, 2015, Critical Costume international exhibition of artistic research, Lume Media Centre, Aalto University, Helsinki, Finland, 2015, MarKings Performance and Illustration Festival, Central Saint Martin’s Lethaby Gallery, UK July 2016.