After some discussions, emails and posts on the creative web blog I think the group has an idea and an aim. Its still a bit loose but im sure will find its way as time goes on.
So far the main phrase is ” no shape without shadow” looking at the sustainability and ecological issues in fashion which is one of the biggest sustainability problems, mainly how much water goes into it all, the making, the dye process, washing, throwing away.. and creating new items to replace the dumped.
Fashion and technology is quite a well covered topic in Newcastle at the moment with talks and shows, catalytic clothing exhibit is a collaboration between artist/designer Professor Helen Storey, scientist Professor Tony Ryan and textile designer Trish Belford. A really fantastic collection and idea or purifying the air.
http://www.catalytic-clothing.org/
Interestingly I have been in touch with the Electron microscopy unit in Newcastle and looking at this site there is an EM imagine of the fabric they use, which was what I was originally thinking would be good for ‘no shape without shadow’.
From whats discussed so far ‘no shape without shadow’ there will be 2 performances, these will be made up of a dancer battling/struggling with clothes made from throw away materials that are through frustration becoming thrown and ripped off making the waste fabrics waste. There will be a back projection on a screen behind the dancer, as a back drop, of a video/animation which I will be putting together and with the help of Pengfei and an xbox kinect will react to the dancer speeding up his movements and change/speed up the video/ animation. There has also been talk of some more technical interactivity but for now I think it would be best to get the first part of the interaction solved. All of which will be accompanied by either live or prerecoded music written for the exhibition.
So far the group are waiting to see a clip of the dancer dancing a similar dance to what we will have on the evening as we want to work around this main part.
Im making sketches of how I imagine at the moment the piece may look like and various ideas of what the video/animation will look like. I also had a chat with Adrian and a script writer friend of mine from college Nick, though Nick mainly said its worth waiting to see the dance, but Im quite eager to make a start so I have enough time to get something good done on time along with keeping up with other modules.
One of my ideas is to have various images of moving fabric video’d or stop-framed and these will move during the dance and when the dancer speeds up the fabric will change. As I mentioned above I was thinking about using EM images, and with throw away fabric to eco and sustainable I was thinking of imaging cheap fabric, possible in part slightly torn/worn/ stretched and the most ecological and sustainable fabric, bamboo, which I should be able to get a sample of from the high street. I will go looking for this tomorrow. The EM images could be the last to be seen in the animation/video, perhaps as the dancer tears off his last layers.
Another idea for the video/animation was something a bit like ‘Koyaanisqatsi’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PirH8PADDgQ
I was thinking of filming/stop-framing arial shots of the high street, and just outside primark, perhaps a few other angles showing cheap throw away fashion with huge in coming and out going numbers.
However these are just starting ideas I think I will get started to see how it looks. Further discussions and tests may lead me down a more certain route, be that similar to current ideas or completely different.
I wil add my sketches at some point soon.