The Birthday Suit

One of the things that came up during my meeting with Cynthia was the fact that all of my garments so far have been women’s wear.  Because I’m interested primarily in the objectification of women, I thought that this made sense. But if I’m pursuing the idea of making men experience what women feel when they are subject to the male gaze, perhaps I should design a men’s garment that will reflect what the wearer is looking at (when they look at other people).  This would also further my approach of trying to make people feel something *physical* rather than to solely recreate an emotional, empathetic state of some sort . 

Sooo, here’s my idea.  I could create a mens suit made of swatches of fabric, about 3”x3”, that are lined with nitinol wire.  Nitinol, or ‘memory’ wire, as shown in this video by xslabs [] can be used to create kinetic electronic garments where pieces of fabric move as the underlying nitinol wire contracts and expands. In regards to my suit, however, instead of contracting at random (as the garments in the video do), the movements of the suit fabric would be acting in response to eye-tracking.  The person wearing the suit would be wearing eye-tracking gear that would monitor their viewing of a picture of a woman.  As his eyes rested on certain parts of her body, the corresponding pieces of fabric on his suit would lift up from the memory wire contracting, exposing his nakedness underneath.  This would hopefully suggest to the wearer the invasive nature of the gaze and allow them to experience how degrading it can be to constantly be objectified.