Looking Outwards-09

Graham Murtha

Section A

I looked into the work of artist Toni Dove, an experimental filmmaker based in New York City. Her work challenges the idea of what the moving 2d image is through the synthesis of tactile experiences and reactive live performance. A project of hers that I find particularly interested was a recent installation at the Ringling exhibition, entitled “The Dress that Eats Souls”. The concept of this project was to create a massive, hollow, motion capture suit, and to allow people to control its movement. As the performer wore this mo-cap suit, they experienced what others may have seen while wearing the dress, over the course of 200 years (fictitious). I feel that projects such as these, which involve the audience member on such an intimate and personal level, are re-shaping the medium of cinema, and creating something completely new from the aggregate of different senses and actions. I additionally love her philosophy on what the dress means to the human body, as, in the mo-cap relationship, the looming suit starts to “colonize” your body as you merge with it.

Link to Project Website

Toni Dove, The Dress That Eats Souls, 2018.