Thursday, October 7, 2010, 6:30 PM
4001 Berri (corner Duluth), Suite 201
Sherbrooke Metro
Free admission for Studio XX members; $5.00 for non-members
Hors d’œuvres and refreshments will be served
Studio XX hosts an evening dedicated to textiles, electronic garments and wearable technologies with presentations by media artists, Barbara Layne and Kate Hartman.
Barbara Layne will discuss the creative research environment at Studio subTela where she works with graduate students and international collaborators to develop dynamic textile projects.
Models will demonstrate some of these electronic garments – which include light emitting diodes, sensors and wireless technologies – while interacting with each other and the environment.
Kate Hartman explains, “We are rapidly reinventing the ways in which we relate to each other and the world around us. ‘Relational devices’ speak to needs and longings not currently represented in existing device culture. What gizmo can we use to read our minds, expose our hearts, or settle disputes? What gadget can improve our communication with house plants or buildings or glaciers?” Her presentation will offer a series of prototypes, both technological and conceptual, that allow individuals to reconsider how they relate and communicate with each other.
Biographies:
Barbara Layne is the Director of Studio subTela at the Hexagram Institute of Research and Creation in Media Arts and Technologies. She works with a team of graduate students from Visual Arts and Engineering to develop intelligent cloth structures for the creation of artistic, performative and functional textiles. Incorporating natural materials, microcomputers, sensors and wireless transmission systems, her team produces surfaces that support real time communication and are receptive and responsive to external stimuli.
Layne is also a Professor in the Fibres Department at Concordia University. She has lectured and exhibited internationally, most recently at Electromode (2010 Vancouver Olympics), I-Machine (Germany) and 5 Days Off (Amsterdam). She co-presented the International Symposia of Electronic Arts (Belfast). Layne’s research has been supported by numerous grants including the Canada Council for the Arts, Hexagram Institute, Conseil des arts du Quebec and SSHRC.
http://subtela.hexagram.ca
Kate Hartman is an artist, technologist and educator whose work spans the fields of physical computing, wearable electronics and conceptual art. She is the co-creator of Botanicalls, a system that lets thirsty plants place phone calls for human help, and the Lilypad XBee, a sewable radio transceiver that allows clothing to talk. Her work has been exhibited internationally and featured by the New York Times, BBC, CBC, NPR and in the book Fashionable Technology. Hartman recently moved to Toronto to join the Digital Futures Initiative at OCAD University where she is the Assistant Professor of Wearable & Mobile Technology.
http://www.katehartman.com