Workshop Fashtech

Zoe Mahony's current research explores collaboration, aesthetics, identity, technology and ecology through the multidisciplinary field of computational and responsive clothing. She has extensive Australian and European experience in RTW markets with roles in design, production, ethical supply chains, and marketing. She is a seasoned educator, teaching design thinking, communication, and new technologies. Recipient of the Churchill Fellowship, Mahony has written on design studio practice in England, Belgium, and France. In addition she engages in curating, exhibiting, and freelance design projects.

"For Vivid Ideas, we have gone back to our roots – the underground mycelium network that fungi use to share “data” between unrelated species – and wondered how fungi might use our methods to connect with an alien “network” – humans..."

The Mycelium Project  seeks to communicate environmental data in a non-linguistic way, through light and colour. Using sensors and embedded digital technology, Zoe's garments collect a type of data, both human and environmental which is then visualised in an array of LED lights and through an augmented reality headset. She is joined on this project by Professor Sylvain Giroux from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Sherbrooke, Canada and Melbourne-based new media artist and programmer Warren Armstrong.

Nelia Justo employs a range of methods and materials in her work to produce sculptural garments and installations that engage in a dialogue between the East and West; between the language of decorative arts and electronic technologies.

Particular interest lies in the historical trade of cultural goods (such as cotton, silk, porcelain) and how they have inspired the design, styles and production of cultural artefacts in the West over many centuries. Though her work references historical decorative arts in a broad sense, emphasis predominantly lies in historical textile design and production, focusing on the cultural, technological and political environment in which they were produced. Contemporary electronic technologies have often been incorporated into her work, referencing today’s booming trade in electronic consumer goods and manufactured components. Her work is literally brought to life, as electronic systems merge symbiotically with decorative elements to create poetic artworks.

For Vivid Ideas, Nelia presents two garments. The first, inspired by Bauhaus costume design and origami. features a crystalline structure of tetrahedral forms, accompanied by an iridescent cape with raised scales. An LED matrix which runs across the dress and cape brings the ensemble to life, as a bioluminescent system. The second garment is a collision of folded angles, planes and curves which fuse together in the phosphorescence of UV light emanating from within the garment.

Nick Wishart’s main area of artistic practice is music, sound, video and embedded electronics.

Nick adapts and repurposes existing and emerging domestic technologies and intuitive physical interfaces to create new audio/visual interfaces. Wishart uses embedded electronics, sensors, audio-visual production and circuit bending to create interactive devices such as the bioluminescent jellyfish featured in ERTH’s Prehistoric Aquarium as well as an RGB sensitive chameleon commissioned for Vivid at Taronga Zoo 2016.

In addition to Nick’s musical composition work he creates unique electronic instruments using circuit bending techniques and is a founding member of the all toy band Toydeath. Formed in 1995, Toydeath have played throughout Australia with notable performances at the Sydney Biennale 2010, Big Day Out, The Great Escape as well as international tours to Europe, USA and Asia.