Bodyscape is a 3D printed fashion garment which is illuminated by the wearer’s movement. It’s inspired by the behavior of the human body.

Would you wear a fashion item that illuminates in accordance with your body’s movements? This type of garment could certainly make for an interesting and festive wear. Just imagine, hundreds of people creating a magnificent sea of light just by moving.

If this fluorescent thought tickles your fancy, you should get familiar with Bodyscape, an interactive garment by designer Behnaz Farahi. This fashion piece tracks the wearer’s movements and lights up. Farahi uses 3D printing to develop her design. The garment uses many LEDs to symbolize what Farahi calls “the poetic dance of light and human movement.”

The human body is the primary inspiration behind Bodyscape. As Farahi explains: “As the wearer moves and gyrates her body it lights up with LED lighting controlled by a gyroscope that tracks her shoulder movements.”

The Bodyscape garment explores the critical role of geometry in material engineering in order to creatw a dynamic 3D printed structure. To create this fashion piece, Farahi uses an SLA 3D printer with non-flexible material. She also integrates an interactive lighting system in order to amplify the performative qualities of human bodily movement. By doing this, the fashion designer enables choreography that is driven by bodily movement.

Amplifying Performative Qualities of the Human Body

As well as taking the geometry of material engineering into account, Farahi also uses the Langer lines of the skin. These lines are the topological lines of skin tension, originally discovered in 1861 by anatomist Karl Langer. These lines showcase the areas of the skin that have the least flexibility. In the case of Bodyscape, although the 3D printable material is non-flexible, the use of Langer lines help enable movement within the garment. 

As a result, the rigid 3D printed materials can work with these tension lines, rather than against. By mapping the Langer lines and also working with 2D spirals, Farahi creates a beautifully illuminated garment that moves gracefully.

The lighting works by using a small gyroscope capable of detecting and tracking the 9-axis shoulder movements of the wearer. This collected data is then sent to a microcontroller that illuminates the LED strips placed beneath the surface of the garment. 

Thanks to the body’s movements, different patterns are constantly emerging throughout this fascinating garment. This fashion piece creates an enchanting interactive lighting experience, and also looks stylish on the person that is wearing it.

Check out the video below to see this “illuminated choreography” in action.

Source: Behnaz Farahi