Thursday, January 9th, 2pm, EDA
Isa Gordon presents: "Intersecting Art, Fashion, And Wearable Technology"
Ten percent of our population is already technically
cyborg, with actual machines embedded completely within the flesh. Meanwhile,
the rest of us might be considered metaphoric cyborgs, engaged daily in
cybernetic interactions with our computer interfaces. There has been a
developing convergence between the human body and our technologies which
will only continue to accelerate in the coming years. A number of artists
have been exploring the effects of technological enhancement on both body
and persona, pushing the boundaries of human experience. The consumer
electronics industry has begun to collaborate with fashion designers:
as portable devices become wearable devices, the industry seeks to integrate
mobile functionality with contemporary fashion trends in order to capture
these new markets. Likewise, fashion designers are incorporating cyberpunk
styles and decorative electronic elements such as
electro-luminescence, LCD and LED displays. Artists, scientists and the
body modification community have all begun to push the issues deeper by
experimenting in the territories beneath the skin. This illustrated lecture
surveys the intersections of all these realms, and asks the audience to
consider the ramifications of such convergence.
Isa Gordon is a technology based performance and installation artist.
Her distinctive works have been shown at international performance festivals
and numerous galleries in the US. With an innovative use of interactivity,
she explores the position of hybrid identities and hybrid bodies in the
technological landscape, producing works such as Memory, Ltd. (2001),
Mnemonic Devices (2000), Upon Reflection (1999), and None of the Above
(1997). Through the pursuit of her current work, the Psymbiote project,
Isa places herself in the eye of the storm: the conceptual terrain at
the collision of bodies and machines, the mutation of her own identity
through transformation of the body. This cyborg performance persona hosted
the First Annual SIGGRAPH CyberFashion Show, which Isa also instigated
and coordinated. The project is also featured in two upcoming books on
body transformations via technology, Digital People (Perkowitz) and In
the Flesh (Pitts). Isa recently completed an artist fellowship with the
Institute for Studies in the Arts in Arizona and is currently teaching
in the Interdisciplinary Arts & Performance department at Arizona
State University West. She had also taught in the Photo / New Media department
at Kansas City Art Institute. Visit her website at http://www.sensoryengineering.net/isa/.
Isa will also discuss the upcoming Second Annual SIGGRAPH CyberFashion
Show in San Diego, and how students, artists, and designers can get involved
in this unique event.