DAR À LUZ
Portuguese: to give light, to give birth, to generate.
Dar À Luz is a costume performance based on the concepts of skin, gestation and movement recreated and intertwined through the possibilities allowed by digital fabrication and ‘biodesign’. The aim of this piece is to bring technology close to the most sensorial and palpable human beings have: their bodies. That is why this project resulted in a costume that looks, feels and represents crafted skin, internal tissues and bones of the human female body.
Three main items compose this costume: The Bioflaskin, The Algdress and The Structural Body Paramapp.
The Bioflaskin is the centre of Dar À Luz’s costume. This biomaterial-made-skin-like-inflatable was my costume’s movement base. It would be inflated with a liquid that would symbolize the amniotic liquid within a placenta. It is shaped as a large uterus and placed on top of the core section of the Algdress, meaning on top of the core of the performer’s body.
Having made my own costume-version of the human gestation of a liquid baby , I needed a carrier base to it that could also be worn. This is how the Algdress came to be, a skin-dress with an organic cut that opens the window to that womb. The reason why I call it the ALGdress is that the base for my bio-skin or bio-leather if you will was algae powder, more specifically Alginate. I have also developed a Capsule Skin BioPantone, allowing the possibility for the Algdress to be replicated for anyone’s body with different alginate pigmentation mixes.
At last, the Structual Body Paramapp became almost a protective layer, an exoskeleton for those very frail tissues, the womb and the skin holding it up. This element is the result of digital design made from the 3D Body scans of my supposed performer, Moon Ribas, who ended up not being able to try out the costume due to COVID-19 restrictions.
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Costume designed as a live and digital performance proposal for the Fabricademy 19/20 Final Project.
Concept, Design and realisation by: Gabriela Lotaif
Mentoring by: Anastasia Pistofidou and Cecilia Raspanti
Assistive Mentoring by: Ana Correa, Betiana Pavon, Jessica Dias, Hinako Mitsushima and Maria Maye
Direction of Photography by: Lina Sofía Córdoba, Marcel Rodríguez and Sergi Talavera
Edition by: Gabriela Lotaif
Music: Amazon Ensemble, Na Naia Ne. Amazon Ensemble, Dautibuia. Moby, LA15. Unknown, Real Womb Sounds for Babies.
Movement Experimentation by: Gabriela Lotaif
3D Body Scan of: Moon Ribas and Gabriela Lotaif
Special Thanks to: Jordi Perez, CRAG GENOMICA, Victoria Geaney, Mikel Llobera Guelbenzu, Josep Martí, Victor Barberan and all my Fabricademy Companions.
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In honour of Fiore Basile
