Text by CLOT Magazine
Director Lucy McRae has won the wearable technology fashion film prize Diane Pernet presents A SHADED VIEW ON FASHION FILM 9 for her film “Institute of Isolation” (commissioned by Ars Electronica brightsparks). Such a privilege to have been invited and awarded! Wearable tech, for me, is a curious and somewhat ancient concept, as I’m interested in the slipperiness of where tech meets the body, to the point where the body becomes the technology!
Lucy McRae is a science fiction artist, TED Fellow and inventor of the Swallowable Perfume. McRae is a thought leader and female role model encouraging scientific conversation regarding the future of health, beauty and science. Trained in classical ballet and interior design, her work is steered by science, with the premise to create experiences that take people beyond their expectations of themselves.
The festival occurred in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 9 to 11th June in Nu Boyana Film Studios as part of Balkan Fashion Week. It was curated by Artist-curator-performer-researcher Alex Murray-Leslie (Chicks on Speed, computational foot-wearables research), and it was the first ever fashion film festival dedicated to wearable technology and was aiming to bring to larger audiences the latest technological advances and future materials reinterpreted for fashion and body architecture purposes.
Jury members included a panel of wearable technology experts, researchers, sports scientists and artists: Steve Mann, head of the jury (founder of Mannlabs, Mann is widely regarded as “the father of wearable technology”, inventor of wearable augmented reality, and co-inventor [with Minksy and Kurzweil] of the “sensularity” [sensory singularity], STELARC (Performance Artist, Distinguished Research Fellow, School of Design & Art, Curtin University Perth), Viktoria Modesta (Performance artist, bionic woman, MIT Media Lab Fellow), Bradley Quinn (Author, academic and wearable technology expert), Georgia Taglietti (Head of communication Sonar, Barcelona, Director SheSaidSo Barcelona), Dr. Oscar Tomico (Assistant Professor, Designing Quality in Interaction, Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology).
