In response to digital technology, new methods, thinking and aesthetics have emerged that challenge the way we design. In particular, the extraction of movement introduced by motion-capture technology proposes a design process wherein the motion rather than the form is used as a material. In such a process, the motion is extracted from a defined set of points that creates a digital representation. In this exposition, the strategies utilized when capturing a motion is translated into the process of garment making resulting in other bodily aesthetics through dress. 

Practically, this exposition is based on two independent studies that aim to define parameters for transformations of the moving body’s expression applied to a garment making process. The transformation is approached from two different perspectives; the first study is non-material and borrows theory and references from the field of dance and motion capturing technology. It maps the body as a point-based system based on the body as a moving form and pin-points body functions that affect these points. This part serves as a foundation for the second study that adds material aspects to the work, in particular, by mapping material parameters that relate to how the material is arranged in relation to these points. 

In conclusion, strategies of extraction of movement as the attachments and the scale of fragmentation of materials are considered as the main contribution to the garment making process. As it proposes a new usage of movement, the work has implications for fashion design, costume design and other body movement-based practices.

CUTTLEFISH – Another body 

This work aims to explore other types of preforming bodies. Bodies extending themselves into material and creating expressions based on the body in a dialogue with materials expression. Through this aiming to remove connotations associated with the body through this create for the audience an experience of freedom of imagination. 

Fashion design involves an aesthetics that is based the body as form and is often changed in form according to norms, trends and ideals, shaping by “artificially changing the body’s silhouette and sometimes altering its natural structure” (Koda, 2012). Further, the alterations of dress affect how the body behaves and moves by restricting, enhancing (Bugg, 2006) and enabling movements through both physical and psychological means. In Cuttlefish, the body is instead altered in movement qualities and through this as form. 

The visual removal of the body, contributed to experienced new bodies, it became something that the viewer can relate to on an emotional level as they became new personas and identities. Audience experience a large vary of emotions and personal associations many of them concerning identity; who we are and how we exist together. 

CUTTLEFISH credits:

Choreographer: Nicole NeidertCast: Linn Ragnarsson, Viktoria Andersson, Anton BorgströmCostume design: Linnea BåganderSound design: Elize ArvefjordLight design: Ulrich Ruchlinski 

Premier: September 26th 2017 Falkhallen, Falkenberg, Sweden 

Additional performances:Byteatern Kalmar, KonserthusteaterKarlskrona, SPIRA Jönköping, Region Teatern Växjö, Skånes Dans Teater Malmö.

This research report discusses and reflects on the development of the costume

design and choreography of the performance piece Cuttlefish, 2017–19. In the

performance, the costumes played an essential role as they completely transformed

the movements and forms of the dancers. To enable this, costumes were designed as

temporal forms, garments that contain a particular movement language based on

the structural possibilities of the body. The costumes are discussed here from two

perspectives: in relation to their role in constructing a narrative for the audience,

choreographer and dancers and secondly concerning the practical aspects of their

development as temporal forms. The suggestion is that garments constitute material

opportunities, designed to provide a system of possible movements and expressions

that the choreographer and dancer can explore. The result has implications

for both fields of fashion design and costume design as it proposes fundamental

parameters for a method of constructing garment as temporal form.

The interactive textile sculpture INSIDE/OUTSIDE questions the borders of the body through material form and movement. The form suggest and instructs the choreography and becomes a co-choreographer pushing the narrative further and opening up for interaction between bodies through its materiality. Exhibited at Skövde Art museum, 17 jan - 3 march 2019.

This paper suggests shifting the focus from a visual aesthetic of the body to an aesthetics emerging form the experience of wearing. Historically the aesthetics of wearing has been mainly concerned with visual aspects of body; how dress looks on you/make your body look rather than how it feels and what it does with you. Building further on the notion somatic garment as introduced by Sally E Dean (2011) and somatic style as defined by Shusterman (2012) the project addresses the experience of wearing and its effect on our emotional state and as bodily aesthetics. It is a practical exploration contributing to a theoretical discussion. The findings result from an interdisciplinary study intersecting fashion design and choreography, explored through interactive installations and performances developed over the course of 2 years. In 4 performances, 4 workshops and 3 exhibitions nationally and internationally the tactile and informing potential of wearing has been investigated. The results suggest a particular kind of wear-thinking that affects the body aesthetics through how it imposes movement patterns, positioning, tempo and emotions and through this it affects not only the emotional state of mind body also the appearance of the body. In the study, movements that create well-being, presence and relaxation was enabled with help of the interactive installation.

Examples:

Interactive form exhibited at festival:

https://youtu.be/enaPeIRiELU

Performance: https://youtu.be/9SHC6zRA6TA

This article discusses a practical exploration of the ability of a textile to meet with and affect bodies. It builds on the inherent ability of textiles, particularly in the form of a garment, to evoke movements and emotions. This paper suggests a shift in focus of the design of bodily materiality, towards an expression emerging from interactions connecting materiality and performativity. The findings are the result of 2.5 years of exploration, during which four performances, ten workshops, and four exhibitions were performed. The entwined parameters of expressing and informing are applied as a material choreographic thinking, which in this case results in a material choreography of openness, where expressing and informing are essential as entwined design parameters in the design of body-material interactions. The material choreography is developed as a method for addressing somatic experience, with improvements in terms of wellbeing and presence as aesthetic goals, focusing on reducing movements and emotions relating to stress for people suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome.

This work started off as an exploration of where and how materials are attached to a body forms material conversation but ended up as a far more versatile and complicated conversation with performers and fellow designers in the costume agency 2019. Questions like; When is something a worn costume and when does it make the body into an object? When some choreographing and when something is choreographed? And essentially where these costumes and did it really matter if they were or not? 

 The full documentation of the workshop is available here: https://vimeo.com/381650530

Credit list:

Performers: Nadege Kubwayo, Victor Amel Pedersen 

Costume design: Linnea Bågander

Light designer: Kaja Glenne Lund

Photo: Espen Tollefsen

The performance Cuttlefish questions the form, identity and movement qualities of the dancer and through this it opens up for the discussion, what is a body? The body forms, the viewer can relate to on an emotional level, they became new personas and identities through the new movement qualities and forms. The costume design suggests and push both the choreography and the narrative further, since these new bodies, in themselves, are a choreography and narrative.Dansers: Viktoria Andersson, Anton Borgström och Linn Ragnarsson

The interactive textile sculpture INSIDE/OUTSIDE questions the borders of the body through material form and movement. The form suggest and instructs the choreography and becomes a co-choreographer pushing the narrative further and opening up for interaction between bodies through its materiality. Exhibited at Järnhallen Gotehburg 12-20 may 2018. 

The interactive performance INSIDE/OUTSIDE questions the borders of the body both through how material movement allow the body to extend in scale and by changing the inside and outside perspective of dress. Through this it also questions the notion of wearing. The form suggest and instructs the choreography and becomes a co-choreographer pushing the narrative further and opening up for interaction between bodies through its materiality.

As a collaborative proposal for a presentation at the Symposium, we suggest a performance/workshop format. The invited participant enacts a specific spatial atmosphere of a design studio, where smells are quintessential to a working space and also to the design process. This workshop/performance becomes a method to investigate, how the spaces can be arranged using the olfactive boundaries. If the tactile surfaces create non-visual expressions going beyond a graphical and visual representation. And how change in smells make a distinctive effect in design decisions and design processes for a designer.

Additionally, the workshop/performance is an experimental research presentation format that enables an activated state (smells) and gives a playground for learning. It is a way to display, explore and finally, to discuss the ‘designer experience’ conveyed by embodied interactions with the materials.

We use the design studio as  a framework which is susceptible to be adaptive, hence open for negotiation with existing conditions. We also estimate the importance for it to articulate the tactile, visual and verbal aspects of the designing environment. Therefore, studio as a stage, a material setting to improvise and enact with, is more specifically what interests us.