Project Description::

The costume that I designed as a second body is named “Compli-mum” which means “Complete woman”. It looks like armor for women or special clothing for self-protection, but it is also trendy and sexy looking. The costume changes its own shape by separating or gathering parts of its construction through the use of microcontroller and a motorized skeleton structure. The motorized mechanism transforms the bottom area of the costume and reveals the monitors installed underneath the costume. The parts transform and enlarge the shapes to represent a sexually exaggerated and distorted female body.

The costume starts playing a video as I move.
The accelerometer contained within my costume, measures the degree to which my walking movements tilt the costume.
Theses measurements are interpreted by the Basic Stamp microcontroller to change the track selection on the attached DVD players. As I hacked the Forward and Backwards buttons on the DVD players to accept input from the microcontroller, DVD player itself switch two video tracks when I walk or stop.

As I perform wearing this costume, it looks as if the costume itself opened the bottom and exposed the private area of my body. The publics are invited to watch the video and are expected to crouch down due to the location of the monitors.

Video footage and sound help to understand the theme of my project more clearly. The composite images of the video using logos of well-known commercials or expensive fashion goods add the wit or sarcastic accent to the video.
It is about gender identity represented through mass media and consumers in a capitalistic market. Why a marathon? To me, it’s the most awkward event stands for humanism covered up by all the commercials and sponsorships.

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