magdalena hill

  
performance Talking dress I 2011 I Port Townsend
Morse code:

S . . .
P . . . . .
A . _
C . . .
E .

I . .
S . . .

I . .
N _ .
F . _ .
O . .
R . . .
M _ _
A . _
T _
I . .
O . .
N _ .

I had been dreaming about creating a dress made of bubble wrap long before I heard about the Wearable Art Show in Port Townsend. While preparing for the show the idea evolved further into a Talking dress. The Talking dress speaks original Morse code, repeating the phrase space is information through speakers inserted into the plastic bubbles. Aside from bubble wrap and speakers, the dress combines speaker grill fabric, acoustic foam and a network of wires. I'm interested in how the layers of transparency (thin plastic, sound) emphasize the fragility of sentient beings. Through these combined elements she communicates subtle synergistic energies as if to create a possible butterfly effect – space is information. 

Cell phone recording of performance by Jack Call on facebook.

performance

Dress under construction...

 
work in progress

Template glory

For the Talking dress I sewed two corsets - one made of speaker fabric and the top corset made of transparent vinyl. Sewing vinyl was indeed a slippery sequence of events.

corset

corset form