Olivia Eckstine
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Prompt: An exploration of textiles as a sculptural medium, investigating how fabric and fiber can move beyond utility into the realms of form, identity, and meaning. Working primarily with found and recycled materials, this project examines how softness can carry political and conceptual weight transforming, obscuring, or extending the body through material construction.
The piece is embedded with ultrasonic sensors that detect proximity in real time. As a person or object moves closer the LED patterns activate light responding to nearness, the boundary of the body made suddenly visible and alert. I made the choice to leave all of the technology exposed, the sensors sit on the surface, the wiring is part of the aesthetic, and broken and salvaged circuit boards and other components are incorporated as ornamentation. I was not interested in hiding the technology inside something that looked like fashion. I wanted the machinery to be legible, even beautiful because I think there is something important in not pretending it isn’t there. The material is the meaning. A smooth, seamless garment would have said something completely different.