Digital artefacts
The presented artifacts were developed with an explorative approach in mind to identify possibilities and limitations of Virtual Reality technologies (VR) for designing and experiencing dress. Oculus Quest VR devices combined with immersive 3D sketching applications such as Google Tilt Brush or Gravity Sketch were used as creative sketching and prototyping software to design dress in immersive digital environments. Observations and reflections were made during and afterthe design process with regards to materialities, features, and techniques for designing dress that deviate from designing dress in physical environments. The reflections made, based on observations and comparisons, suggested alternative ways of designing and experiencing dress at the intersection of physical and digital environments that are made possible through VR technology. Designing and experiencing dress as digital content that can be physically engaged with give rise to questions such as how big or small dress could be to be worn, how one could experience digital dress on one’s body or what purpose dress have if they consist of bits and bytes rather than cotton, wool or silk. The presented artifacts and the reflections made suggested fundamental artistic possibilities for digital technology that significantly influenced the development of the author’s research program.