London College of Fashion presents 'Digital Disturbances'

Friday 11 September - Saturday 12 December 2015
#DigitalDisturbances

Fashion Space Gallery, located at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London is pleased to announce its latest exhibition Digital Disturbances. A group show curated by Leanne Wierzba and featuring designers: ANREALAGE, Bart Hess, Flora Miranda, POSTmatter, Simone C. Niquille and Alexander Porter, Tigran Avetisyan, Texturall. This new exhibition will examine the influence of digital concepts and tools on fashion.

Over the past two decades digital technology has advanced from a confined and peripheral tool into an integrated and mainstream component of the way fashion is produced, distributed and analysed. While this increasing engagement has affected the way fashion works practically, it has also given rise to new ideas about how the physical world might be understood and represented.

Out of this emerges a body of work which raises questions about the current potential, limitations and desirability of integrating digital phenomena into the fabric of the material world. This work reveals the strange and uneven process of translation across material and virtual platforms - or between analogue and digital techniques - in which information is potentially lost, gained or distorted.

Digital Disturbances presents both recent works and new commissions by seven designers and creative teams whose work documents these interactions and effects, both in the design and representation of fashion.

POSTmatter will showcase Ripple (2014), an interactive film installation which simulates the virtual experience of touch. Visitors are invited to run their hands across a motion sensor fabric control panel, causing digital ripples to reveal layers of materials and images on screen.

Echo (2011), a film by Bart Hess, explores ongoing material research into the creation of shape through repetition - physical materials and the human body mutate into sculptural timelapses.

A selection of garments from Anrealage's Autumn/Winter 2010 wideshortslimlong collection will show the results of using computer design software to manipulate objects - presenting the viewer with four dramatically different silhouettes.

Shirts from Simone C. Niquille's REALFACE Glamouflage (2013) collection raise questions about the impact of facial recognition technology and surveillance on personal privacy. They employ dazzle, a camouflage which uses optic illusions to conceal through confusion. Patterns on the shirts incorporate pirated faces and celebrity impersonators in multiples, providing an additional layer of 'identity' which enables wearers to evade verification.

The exhibition will be accompanied by an events programme of talks, workshops and masterclasses. Coinciding with the exhibition, on 16 October there will be a forum exploring the now, near and future of fashion technology which asks 'Where are our digital selves heading?' called #RE_IMAGINE.

This will launch The Digital Anthropology Lab at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts which is a research studio bringing industry and academia together to develop a new way of making smarter technology.

Digital Disturbances is curated by Leanne Wierzba and commissioned by Ligaya Salazar, Director, Fashion Space Gallery.
VENUE: Fashion Space Gallery
ADDRESS: London College of Fashion, 20 John Prince's Street, London, W1G 0BJ
ENTRANCE: FREE
DATES: Friday 11 September - Saturday 12 December 2015
WEB: www.fashionspacegallery.com

Fashion Space Gallery
First launched in 2010, Fashion Space Gallery is a contemporary space situated within London College of Fashion's Oxford Circus campus and has hosted a number of small but internationally recognised fashion-related exhibitions such as Jean Paul Gaultier: Be My Guest and Warpaint: Alexander McQueen and Make-up. The ethos behind the exhibitions at Fashion Space Gallery is one of excellence and innovation, supporting both established artists and cutting-edge and emerging talent. The exhibitions programme is free of charge and is supported by a programme of events, artist talks, lectures and performances.

Source: London College of Fashion