bloodletting is an audiovisual experience dealing with the ever-changing realms of fashion and technology’s promising synthesis. bloodletting utilizes data from a viewer or wearer’s biofeedback via pulse sensor, which detects oxygen levels in one’s bloodstream and transmits this dataset back to the circuits, lending this unique and newfound entry into a dress’ ecosystem. This dress is wired with various lighting forms and physical computing methods that are coded to distinguish between different incoming data sets from the pulse sensor, which provide a one-of-one light network for each user. bloodletting asks the questions of what it means to fall under a spell of digital transcendence and undergo a representation of catharsis wherein we’re able to transfigure our vulnerable internalities into a physical, out-of-body manifestation. What does it mean for the context of a dress without a wearer to be used as a vehicle that reads as inanimate prior to our human, animate contribution? bloodletting also establishes the presence of a soundscape which looks into the effect of auditory processing on one’s pulse feed. In the world that bloodletting encompasses and builds as its own entity, we can open up the dance floor to the concepts of pain on elevated scales, etheric bodies, vessels for life, digital possession, techno-paganism, wearable technology, and of course, letting go of our wounds. Thank you to everyone who has helped me realize this idea and bring it to full fruition. Thank you to MA+P for everything–to Elizabeth and DJ, and to Chalayan.
