I+E Illumination and Emanation; Light as Body Adornment and the Implications of Wearable Light

I+E Illumination and Emanation; Light As Body Adornment and the Implications of Wearable Light is practice-based research that exploits advances in miniature light sources in order to establish new forms of aesthetic expression through wearable light.

I+E investigates how wearable light interacts with the body and its environment; it explores how this interaction shapes the visual perception of the body and establishes a critical framework for the description and evaluation of wearable light.

Practice working with light and body crosses disciplines from jewellery and fashion to fine art, performance and lens-based media. Wearable light, however, is a new field with few precedents and potential for future applications in sportswear, therapeutic rehabilitation and personal safety.

A reflexive, and adaptive methodology characterized the research process in which practice was the main vehicle, informed by the selection of critical context and continuous external feedback. Due to the cross-disciplinary nature of wearable light collaborative projects with practitioners in art & design and technological experts were balanced with experimental solo projects.

The research outcome is a body of work that investigates wearable light in a variety of applications such as light jewellery, performance and lens-based media.

Original contributions to knowledge are: in developing an experimental, practice-based research methodology with a particular focus on the role of collaborations vis-à-vis solo projects, and the expansion of the role of the practitioner from designer-maker to ‘auteur’, the focus and conduit in the practice of a new and complex performance art based on wearable light; in developing a critical vocabulary for the description and evaluation of wearable light and in investigating the mechanics of placing light on the body and its effects on the perception of the body in its environment.