Video, 59:00min

Public Receptors: Beneath the Skin proposes the development of wearable spatial structures on a human scale that are able to mediate between their users and public spaces – between the human body and its urban situation. The project aims to explore the relationships between bodies, clothing, architecture and the built environment in New York City. Through the design of alterable spatial garments, Public Receptors explores the potential for soft geometries and textile surfaces, conventionally associated with the individual body on a human scale, to generate alternative arrangements of social space and modes of interaction in the urban fabric.

The use and interplay of digital and physical techniques within the design and manufacturing process of Public Receptors negotiates between the creation of form (digital drawings and cutting of felt structures) and the dissolution of form (achieved by soft materials and physical interaction). In the end a mediating tactile device between body and places emerges – instrumentalising soft material structures as an interface and skin of communication between the own inner self and the outside urban fabric.  

The project was supported by Van Alen Institute New York, USA within the scope of a New York Prize Fellowship 2008-09. Performances by Lydia B. Bell, Khalia Frazier, Stephanie Fungsang - New York.