Description:
Ilinx is a performative environment for the general public provoking an intense bodily experience that blurs the senses of sight, sound and touch. In the environment, a group of four visitors at a time wear specially designed garments. These wearables are outfitted with various sensing and actuating devices that enable visitors to interface with the performance space. During the event, a ritualistic progression which lasts approximately twenty minutes, the natural continuum between sound and vibration, vision and feeling becomes increasingly blurred, extending and stretching the body’ boundaries beyond the realm of everyday experience.
The project is inspired by work in the area of what is called sensory substitution – the replacement of one sensory input (vision, hearing, touch, taste or smell) by another, while preserving some of the key functions of the original sense.
The term ilinx (Greek for whirlpool) comes from the French sociologist Roger Caillois and describes play that creates a temporary but profound disruption of perception as is common in experiences of vertigo, dizziness, or disorienting changes of speed, direction or the body’s sense in space. “…An attempt to momentarily destroy the stability of perception and inflict a kind of voluptuous panic upon an otherwise lucid mind.”
IDMIL Participants:
External Participants:
Chris Salter + TeZ: Direction and Sound
Valerie Lamontagne: Wearables Direction and Design
Isabelle Campeau: Wearable Development
Marie-Eve Lecavalier Lemieux: Wearable Development
Ian Hattwick: Technology Direction/Hardware-Software
Omar Falleh: Lighting Collaboration
Panagiotis Tomaras: Production Assistance
Marcello Giordano: Hardware-Software/Haptics Research
Ivan Franco: Hardware-Software
Deborah Egloff: Haptics Research
Marcelo M. Wanderley Hardware-Software Supervisor
Morgan Rauscher: Robotics development/Production Assistance
Ian Arawjo: Sketching Software
Research Areas:
Funding:
- Canada Council for the Arts’ GRAND NCE Media Artist and Scientist Collaboration Scheme
