Soundforms

SoundForms was commissioned by the University of Brighton Gallery. It was an installation and software work-in-progress, in which fashion design is generated from music or sound.

As a concept-led designer, Soundforms extended my fascination with the work of John Cage and Robert Rauschenberg. Inspired by their ideas of deriving musical and visual results from found material, chance and the contribution of an audience, I apply similar methodologies to establish new experiential ways of designing fashion.

The project was a collaboration with composer Stephen Wolff. Together, we developed a computer software program in which the amplitude or loudness of a selected music composition would be matched to a particular set of forms from a library of my own designed shapes, colours, patterns and photographs. The louder or more distinct an instrument or section of music, the bolder and brighter the forms and colours projected would appear, and, conversely, the quieter the music the less distinct the forms and colours projected. Soundforms were screen projected onto a woman motif, where resulting compositions become the basis of a fashion idea or sketch.

SoundForms has led to an interactive research strand, entitled ‘SoundWear’ – an extensive online project and user database. From this, selected user ‘designs’ will be developed into finished, wearable garments, for exhibition at a later date, to demonstrate the system’s potential as an experimental way to create fashion to complement more traditional methods of designing clothes.

• http://www.brighton.ac.uk/gallery-theatr...
• http://www.soundwear.co.uk
• http://www.simonthorogood.com/menu.html