Articulated 3D-Printed Gown
Michael Schmidt and Francis Bitonti revealed their fully 3d printed gown modeled by Dita Von Teese.
The fully articulated gown based on the Fibonacci sequence was designed by Michael Schmidt and 3D modeled by architect Francis Bitonti to be 3D printed in Nylon by Shapeways. The gown was assembled from 17 pieces, dyed black, lacquered and adorned with over 13,000 Swarovski crystals to create a sensual flowing form.Thousands of unique components were 3D printed in a flowing mesh designed exactly to fit Ditta’s body. This represents the possibility to 3D print complex, customized fabric like garments designed exactly to meet a specific person or need.

マイケル·クラーク·カンパニー
Come, been and gone

Ballet meets punk, and neither comes out the same. In its highly anticipated first visit to Chicago, the electrifying Michael Clark Company provocatively pays homage to the decadence and unbridled fun of 1970s club culture. British dance iconoclast Michael Clark sets his choreography in come, been and gone to the music of fellow rebel David Bowie, and collaborates with video artist and dance film pioneer Charles Atlas. Clark’s dancers don Bowie-style leather jackets and echo his unique body language, building up to a detonation of jumps and kicks. “Come, been and gone” pulls off a remarkable feat—matching the cool, alien beauty of the singular singer, who makes a cameo appearance here thanks to 1977 film footage of his track “Heroes.”

Astronomical Bodies

Astronomical Bodies is based on the research of Dr. Terence Kee of the University of Leeds. He proposes that that a reactive form of phosphorus arrived on the early Earth via meteorite impacts. His research found that phosphorus from space was more suitable for the chemical reactions to develop complex life. Astronomical Bodies reverses this process and tries to transform phosphorus harvested from the body — in the form of kidney stones and urine — into manmade meteorites. Rather than the traditional idea of transpermia addressed in a host of science fiction writings and films, Astronomical Bodies proposes that the galactic transferal of life-promoting chemicals is a natural process that we can facilitate.

Solitary Survival Raft
Solitary Survival Raft is a machine that comforts a single body as they drift into the unknown. This artwork explores how we can reconcile the human urge to explore new frontiers, while tending to fear. The raft is an exploration of where we are at, rather than a demonstration of survival – do you drop off the edge when you reach the horizon or merge closer to truth when you give fear the cold shoulder?

Oyster
oyster is a new opera (in progress) about a surprising precursor to last.fm and Pandora. In the 1960’s, renowned American folklorist Alan Lomax developed a wildly ambitious system called cantometrics for coding and analyzing folk songs from every corner of the world. The opera is structured as a public lecture of Alan Lomax’s folk song analysis as demonstrated by four singers, who embody the IBM360 mainframe computer used to correlate his vast amounts of data. Working with the BOTCH vocal ensemble, I am reconstructing the folksong styles from regions as disparate as Bali, West Africa, and Central America using only the data from Lomax’s study. Things like melodic complexity, vocal blend, and nasality, are adjusted by the singers as they circumnavigate the globe. This data vocalization is further mediated by the ensemble’s distinctive extended vocal techniques, and is accompanied by a film narrative that unravels connections between cybernetics, surrealism and ethnography. The film also features a wide range of material drawn from the Alan Lomax archive at The Library of Congress.
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oyster will be performed by BOTCH ensemble: Christina Campanella, Michael Chinworth, John Rose, and Saori Tsukada