Micro-Project: Costume Design

A jellyfish has no ears or eyes or nose and no brain or heart! They do not even have a head. Their body is almost totally made of water and is soft having no bones at all. Jellyfish are invertebrate animals because they do not have a spine or backbone.

My Idea

In my opinion, touch is a shock that can be comforting. When my skin brush across someone else’s, I feel an electric shock traveling up my nerves. This tingling sensation gives me goosebumps and a strong emotion of excitement. The tremors running through my body sounds like an alluring melody sang in high-pitch vocals. At the same time, the tremor resembles a million fire ants crawling up my four limbs, constantly biting me at every millisecond. The result is fear, followed by numbness and the gradual transition to desensitization. I perceive desensitization as a climax of an emotional responsive state when I no longer feel anything through touch – when touch becomes incapable, thus intangible.

However, the desire to touch and to be touch is innate in us. We seek for comfort when we are shock and we seek for shock when we are in comfort. This cycle continues endlessly.

When touch reaches a climax, it can only repeat itself.

In a virtual world, in separate spaces, we are limited to touch through our physical boundaries. We can only make use of our visual and auditory senses along with the aid of different types of programmed sensors to guide us through our exchange in touch.

Concept Statement

Something in another space triggered movement in my space through my sense of sight. In blue, yellow and red led, the colours fuses together at different combinations of flashing intervals to produce green, purple and orange. The flashing light represents the pulsing of a heart that a jellyfish doesn’t have. The pulsing heart dies and revives almost immediately with every single stimulation from another spaces that intrudes my space, causing different sets of movement running through my body.

I intend to use about 6 sets of 3 led lights – red, yellow, blue, scattered randomly around the flares of a white dress. Nine led lights will be sewn on the front and nine on the back of a dress. Each led will be connected to a Lilypad that will be sewn onto the abdomen portion of the dress. There will be a motion sensor sewn to the chest area which will detect my movement as I wave my hands across it causing the lights on the flares of my dress to light up.

Sketch of Jellyfish dress
Sketch of Jellyfish dress
Side view
Side view
Front View
Front view
Back view
Back view
Mood board
Mood board

 

Author: Ong Xin Hong

Painting is not just a mere documentation of what you see.

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