Gregory Phillips and Wendy Ng – Haute Filtrage

Filters are vital to our digitally mediated lives: In a landscape bombarded by signals, filters help us see the forest for the trees. Filters can block or boost information, obscure or enhance, authenticate or discredit. Can our clothing be a filter for the body? For our identity? Who is applying the filter, and who decides what is kept and what is lost? How do filters challenge our everyday perception?

Using augmented reality and digital manufacturing, including 3D printing and textile design, the project aims to explore the implications of the filtered body within the public (surveillor) and private (surveilled) realms. The audience is invited to participate using their own smartphones or eyes: By specifically filtering for specific electromagnetic wavelengths, viewers can glean different perspectives or reveal hidden information encoded into the garments’ materials.

Haut Filtrage is a collaborative fashion tech project by material artist and designer Gregory Phillips (Spandrel Media) and fashion designer Wendy Ng (Dystropolis). Inspired by nature, three assembles were designed and created with 3D printing, digital textile printing and traditional garment construction. Filters were created to view these assembles. RGB light can be used to view these assembles as well.

Please see attached additional description for these assembles and technologies employed on them: Escargot Begonia (dress), Sessilia (tunic and pants assemble) and Moss Maille (harness and skirt assemble).

At the Festival, visitors will be invited to view the garments through special filters and discuss what they experience.