LookingOutwards-03

In 2019, Ying Gao, a conceptual fashion designer and media professor, released a robotic clothing collection that can reacted to its surroundings. The collection, entitled  “flowing water, standing time”, response to the essence of movement by rippling, expanding and contracting as if they are live creatures. Her project questions traditional assumptions about clothing by combining robotics and fine fabrics to create performative pieces that transform their physical contour. The color and light sensors embedded in the fabric, with a tiny camera linked to a raspberry PI computer, are used to gather information about their surrounding. Data are sent to a series of actuators and magnets that is interlaced with the fabric to create movement. The clothes have a fluid and chameleon-like appearance, embodying the complexity and rhythm of the ever-changing surrounding.