Thirteenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

Building upon my established history as a performance artist and pop musician, this research investigates new ways of costuming the foot for theatrical audiovisual expression as a ‘gesamtkunstwerk’—an all-embracing artwork that adopts and makes use of many artforms and disciplines. Through the development of a series of Computer Enhanced Footwear (CEF) prototypes, this research demonstrates how this gesamtkunstwerk came together through the intersection of fashionable costume design, pop music, dance choreography, lens-based work, scenography, kinesiology, sound and lighting system design, and 3D fabrication practices. Resulting in a unified body of work, grounded by the notion that shoes and feet are more than simply tools to help carry our bodies around. Explorations of philosophical concepts around the feet and footwear from anthropology, natural science, and medical literature are featured in this paper, along with detailed portrayals of my personal artistic method are presented to showcase my cross-disciplinary, reflexive, and experimental practice-based approach, which occurs within varied contexts and settings, including fabrication workshops, sports science laboratories, pole dance studios, music festival stages, fashion catwalks, and art museum events. It also illustrates how these divergent practices converged during the research to create the CEF prototypes and shape their materials, functions, and aesthetics, in an effort to liberate the feet when in the air, on the ground, or submerged in water. Analysis and self-reflections of the researcher’s role as performer and fabricator are provided together with video and photographic documentation to help demonstrate the outcomes and processes of the various CEF projects.