Wearable technology to connect audiences with performers through light
Using side-glow fibre optics and microcontrollers, the lights that are threaded through the eyelets can be controlled by the audience. This was designed in collaboration with The Venus Bushfires (Helen Epega) for her opera ‘Of Earth And Quill’. This Afrofuturist opera is inspired by her relationship with her homeland of Nigeria and her experience as a synesthete (she experiences music as colour and shape). Her performance invites interaction between the performers and audience through call and response and collective movement, as such I knew I wanted a garment that would connect the audience to the performer as they operate controllers that are passed among the audience to control the lights worn by the performer; changing colours as the buttons are pressed. I intend to use traditional Nigerian fabrics, Ankara and Aso Oke, for the final piece but for the prototype was only able to source Ankara.
