1. Pain Creature / Performance
Designer & Performer: Dila Demir
Photography by: Kadri Tiganik
Sound Design & Software Development: Vincenzo Madaghiele
Pain Creature is a performative work that externalizes the pain(s) experience of the performer (the diseased body). It uses sound to explicate the various qualities of felt experience of pain reacting to the movements and touches of the diseased body. The performance happens between the body and the interactive wearable textiles that called as the soma extension. The soma extension is the physical manifestation of the pain and through kinesthetically unfold with the soma extension the body communicates her pain and in each movement becomes a new with pain.
The performance is developed based on my doctoral research where I explore how pain can be externalized through movement-based interactive textiles. With my collaborator Vincenzo Madaghiele, who is the sound designer and the software developer, we turned the interactive textiles that were developed within my Ph.D. into a performance. Through this performance we explore how implicit bodily experiences can be communicated to others and what happens when we witness the pain of others.
The premiere of the performance will be in Vent Space, Tallinn, Estonia in December 2023. Stay tuned!
2. Odyssey for One
Costume and Set Design & Concept Development: Dila Demir
Story and Concept & Software Development: Mihkel Kohava
I attended the STARTS.EE residency program, as an artist and a researcher, hosted by the HCI group at TLU and eˉlektron. With her residency partner Mihkel Kohava (theater director), they developed an interactive embodied theatre experience where they portray the story of Odysseus.
In this interactive experience, participants as Odysseus have two tasks to complete to find their way back home, Ithaca. These tasks are based on physical movement and inner movement as calming down at all times. The first one is measured via a motion sensor whereas the latter is measured with EDA (electrodermal activity sensor) which measures biological excitement levels. When they fail to perform the tasks, they either stop on the way or fall back in the story and try again.
To make participants' bodily data available for the interactive experience, sensors and LED lights are embedded into the costumes. As a response to the kinesthetic and biological data collected via costumes audio and visual feedback is provided. For the movement tasks, they receive audio feedback as part of the story, and for the biological data, they receive visual feedback in form of light. Light feedback, which indicates the excitement levels, is given by the costume and via the light installation on the stage.
3. Interactive Costume Design
I took part in a collaborative project conducted by the artist Dr. Ellen Pearlman with Tallinn University which is funded by the Vertigo project as part of the STARTS program of the European Commission. The project is titled as AIBO: A. I. Brainwave Opera which had its world premiere in February 2020 in Tallinn. I worked as a smart textile costume designer and designed the costume that displays the emotions of the performer in a light form by getting the data from an EEG headset.
4. Metamorphosis
Photography by Mehmet Can Boysan
Artist & Model: Dila Demir
Technique: knitting and tapestry weaving Material: raffia, paper, and hemp yarn
Metamorphosis is a series of knitted and woven textiles that explores the transformation of the body searching for the natural forms.
5. Memory Space
Photography by Katerina
Artist: Dila Demir
Technique: laser cutting, sewing, embroidery
Material: felt, various yarns, mesh fabric
Memory Space is a search for the textures of nature through the tactile eye.
be in that moment when your eyes makes you feel the tactility, the smell and the sound
be in that moment when your skin feels and memorizes
