As part of a project titled FLOWING WATER, STANDING TIME, Montréal-based fashion designer Ying Gao has created robotic clothing that reacts to the chromatic spectrum.
The project was inspired by neurologist Oliver Sacks’ book The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat. With the book composed of Sacks’ patient cases, Gao references the case study of Jimmie G, a 49-year-old former sailor who has anterograde amnesia due to Korsakoff’s syndrome.
Unable to form any new memories and believing that he is still 19, Jimmie, when handed a mirror, is in disbelief by his own reflection.
“Having lost any sense of temporal continuity, Jimmie lives as a prisoner to this single, perpetual moment, oscillating between a presence to the world and a presence to self,” explained Gao.
Like Jimmie, the robotic clothing metamorphizes between two states.
“This travelling between opposite states – from immobility to movement – does not operate as a dichotomy,” stated Gao. “Upon the field of time, which injects energy into the very core of inertia, fluctuates the intensity animating each garment in its unique way.”
“These two states are mere dropping-off points among an infinite array of possibilities,” added Gao.
Made from silicone, glass, PVDF and electronic devices, the clothing is capable of chromatic movement and recognizing colour. Similar to liquid and a chameleon, the clothing reacts to the surrounding environment.
