Dressing the Weightless Body: Subjective verticality and the disoriented experience of dress in microgravity

© Barbara Brownie 2020. The definitive, peer reviewed and edited version of this article is published in Clothing Cultures, Volume 6, Issue 3, October 2020, https://doi.org/10.1386/cc_00020_1.Design practice has historically been constrained by the assumption that designed objects, including clothing, will be made and worn in Earth gravity. The notion that designed objects have an upright state has influenced common approaches to design, including the tendency towards depiction and presentation of designed objects in elevation view, which, for fashion, is frequently understood in terms of silhouette. However, those who have experienced weightlessness, either in space travel or on board reduced gravity aircraft, describe a post-gravity experience that prompts them to revisit these assumptions and consider the extent to which future commercial space travel will liberate creative practitioners to operate at all angles and orientations. As we enter the commercial space age, fashion will be increasingly worn in a variety of gravitational conditions, and the dressed body will therefore be encountered at a variety of orientations, showcasing views of garments that are not often encountered on Earth, and that are therefore often overlooked by fashion designers. This article responds to descriptions of the post-gravity experience by identifying the need to consider alternative views of the clothed body, and consequently to define garments without reference to the silhouette in fashion design for the new commercial space age.Peer reviewe

Dressing the weightless body: Subjective verticality and the disoriented experience of dress in microgravity

Design practice has historically been constrained by the assumption that designed objects, including clothing, will be made and worn in Earth gravity. The notion that designed objects have an upright state has influenced common approaches to design, including the tendency towards depiction and presentation of designed objects in elevation view, which, for fashion, is frequently understood in terms of silhouette. However, those who have experienced weightlessness, either in space travel or on board reduced gravity aircraft, describe a post-gravity experience that prompts them to revisit these assumptions and consider the extent to which future commercial space travel will liberate creative practitioners to operate at all angles and orientations. As we enter the commercial space age, fashion will be increasingly worn in a variety of gravitational conditions, and the dressed body will therefore be encountered at a variety of orientations, showcasing views of garments that are not often encountered on Earth, and that are therefore often overlooked by fashion designers. This article responds to descriptions of the post-gravity experience by identifying the need to consider alternative views of the clothed body, and consequently to define garments without reference to the silhouette in fashion design for the new commercial space age

Être en apesanteur :

Résumé Le dispositif de réalité virtuelle Être en apesanteur faisant l’objet de cet article est issu du projet du Labex Arts-H2H Le Corps Infini qui réunissait différentes formes d’expression artistique du corps en apesanteur dans l’espace scénique du cirque. Cette installation est à la fois un processus de recherche création et un des fruits des expérimentations réalisées autour du projet. Elle nous a conduit à s’interroger sur les caractéristiques diégétiques d’un monde virtuel suggérant des perceptions d’apesanteur, et en quoi des interactions avec des matières fluides et volatiles pourraient venir renforcer cette sensation d’incarnation dans ce monde. Lors de la performance Le Corps Infini, le monde virtuel Être en apesanteur invitait le public à vivre le point de vue aérien des circassiennes, et une sensation de gravité altérée. En explorant un environnement onirique sans pesanteur, le spectateur entre dans un état d’énaction lorsque ses gestes s’incarnent progressivement dans son corps virtuel. Porté par une balancelle, il se met dans une posture quasi fœtale, comme s’il était soutenu par la main d’une personne, tel un embryon dans sa poche amniotique.Abstract The artistic installation Being in weightlessness studied in this article is born from the Labex Art & H2H Infinite Body project which is gathering multiple artistic representations of bodies in suspension in the circus scenic space. This installation is both a research-creation process and a result of experimentations produced around the project. It led us to question diegetic characteristics of a zero-gravity virtual world and how interactions with fluids and volatile materials could improve feelings of incarnation in this world. Being in weightlessness invited the public to experience weightless feelings from the aerial viewpoint of the Circassians during the Infinite Body performance. By exploring an environment without gravity, the spectator enters a state of enaction while his gestures are gradually embodied in his virtual body. Comfortably suspended in a spherical swing, he puts himself in an almost fetal position as if it was supported by an invisible hand, like an embryo in its amniotic sac

Off the Orbit: Works of Art for Long-Term Space Travellers. Outline of a novel artistic practice

Full version unavailable due to 3rd party copyright restrictions.This research combines the arts with human spaceflight. The aim of the investigation is to identify the aesthetic parameters for display in works of art on extended crewed missions. The study claims that, within the research area of human spaceflight, novel working methods should be developed that can integrate the artist into the scientific process. The extraordinary challenges of extended space exploration not only concern technical and human-bodily aspects, they will also affect the enormous psychological and psychosocial restrictions the spacefarer will face. These limitations are due to the unusual distance and the long timeframes; the future explorers will live confined and isolated within the habitat environment far away from their place of origin. In addition, the consequences of sensory deprivation caused by the high-tech indoor habitat, the emptiness of outer space, the effects of social monotony and limited contact with home will dominate their life in the extreme environment and the emotional state of the future explorer. Many cultural techniques for recreation and stress mitigation are already in use or will be tested in human spaceflight in the near future. However, in this context the implementation of works of art has not been evaluated. The production of works of art for future astronauts represents a new research area. From the artistic perspective, creativity will expand in an unusual manner. Artists will not only have to develop significant metaphors, they will also be confronted with an unknown responsibility, because the confined and isolated astronaut will become the exclusive audience and user of their works. Furthermore, works of art must follow the particular demands of verifiability, safety, and reliability. These specific conditions will give the artistic work a unique meaning which makes the work a part of the life-sustaining system. The outcome will be an experiment that combines both artistic and scientific strategies

A sense of space: the separation of dress and body in microgravity

In microgravity, the astronaut’s body is suspended in a void, separated from its surroundings except where measures have been taken to tether it to a surface. The experience of weightlessness can be characterised as ungroundedness – the feeling of being out of touch with surrounding surfaces. This sensation extends to clothing, which is suspended in the space around the body, not anchored to the skin as it is in normogravity. While on Earth, the weight of clothing on skin is a constant reminder of gravitational forces, equally, in space, the absence of the sensation of cloth against skin is a reminder that the body is located in an extraterrestrial environment in which the behaviours and sensations of everyday objects are defamiliarized. This article briefly considers the sensation of weightlessness from the perspective of the relationship between clothes and the body, and proposes ways in which these considerations could inform creative practice in fashion and costume design, and in depictions of the clothed, weightless body

Encounters: Contemporary Art-Science Collaborations in the UK

This thesis is a study of a group of scientists who, in the years after 1995, undertook collaborative work with artists. Although the interface between art and science has many historical aspects, they are not the main concern of this study. Attention is focused instead on what these contemporary scientists may have gained from collaborating with artists. The recent growth of funding for such collaborations, for example from the Wellcome Trust, is discussed, and four projects are described. In a study of the relevant literature, links are found between contemporary work at the art-science interface and recent attempts to promote the public engagement with science. However the main theoretical drive of the thesis draws its structure from philosophical and sociological sources, principally the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK). In interview most scientists were explicit in their doubts that their artistic encounter could have any importance in their research life. Tacitly, however, they implied the opposite. The study finds several compelling cases of artists materially assisting scientific work. On a broader front, by examining the scientists' views on their professional culture, the thesis reveals that the scientists use the arts collaboration to explore views on a wide variety of metaphysical and professional issues. I argue that these explorations lead to changes in the way the scientists approach their professional life. An important theme running through the thesis is the notion of ambivalence. Contradictions are found between the scientists' stated view of the method of science and what they actually do. The scientists were also anxious to describe themselves as people possessing some autonomy. The thesis concludes by considering whether the art-science collaboration should be encouraged both for its creative potential, and for its ability to bring scientists into more reflective relationships with science, and with society