Caress of the Gaze
For Caress of the Gaze, Farahi worked with AutoDesk, PIER9 (where she is currently an Artist in Residence) and MADWORKSHOP to create a kind chest-covering cape covered with a beautiful layer of feather-like quills. While they appear soft to the touch, the quills can actually detect the gaze of another (a man, as shown in the video below) and expand and contract as his eyes move around the body. A microcontroller connected to the cape’s camera can also detect the age and gender of the onlooker, perhaps helping the wearer to discern their motives.

Vocal Trio
FILE FESTIVAL
“Vocal Trio,” which consists of three musical instruments, transforms the voice of a singer or a speaker received through a mike into a sound of each musical instrument while maintaining the same rhythm and musical scale. A pipe horn, which looks like a long trumpet or pipe, makes a deep and low-tone horn sound. A water bell, which looks like a water drop, makes a clear bell-sound, and a leaf flute, which looks like a leaf, makes a reed pipe sound. The spectator’s voice is transformed into the sound of a musical instrument by means of a microcontroller chip. The microcontroller chip of each musical instrument makes a sampling of his or her voice’s frequency. A sampling of the voice made through frequency data is sent to midi chips, which transform it into the sound of a particular musical instrument and the sound is released through the speakers.