20 - Wearable technology for the performing arts

Abstract

In artistic contexts one expects integrated wearable devices to have the two-way function of interface instruments (e.g. sensor data acquisition and exchange) worn for particular purposes, either for communication with the environment or various aesthetic and compositional expressions. Wearables in performance surveys the history of wearables in the performance arts and distinguishes stand-alone and performative interfacial garments. It then focuses on current experiments in ‘design in motion’ and digital performance, carefully examining the prototype development at the DAP Lab in London and Nottingham involving transdisciplinary intersections between fashion and dance, interactive system architecture, electronic textiles, wearable technologies, and digital animation. The concept of an ‘evolving’ garment design that is materialized (mobilized) in live performance between partners originates from DAP Lab's experimentation with telematics and distributed media addressing the ‘connective tissues’ and ‘wearabilities’ of film through a study of shared embodiment and perception/proprioception in the wearer (tactile sensory processing) and the wearer/designer/viewer relationship. Such notions of wearability are applied both to the immediate sensory processing on the performer's body and to the processing of the responsive, animate environment. The chapter concludes with an outlook to the future of embodied wearable performance, new materials and new interface designs that enable the social experience of such performative garments in diverse aesthetic and cultural contexts.