Photoshoot of the Life Dress with the sun setting on Manhattan in the background.

Life Dress f3

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Illuminated Tech Couture

The Life Dress is an organically inspired piece of tech couture modeling the Game of Life. Handmade tiles with embedded circuitry are composed to run the Game of Life algorithm developed by John Conway. The algorithm models cell life through a simple set of rules applied to squares on a grid. Whether a cell is born, survives, or dies is determined by the condition of surrounding cells. These rules are visualized as dynamic patterns of light on the tiles of the dress. It is through the shared existence of the cells, or, indeed, people, that any survive and illuminated animations occur.

Appearances

• ITP Thesis Week 2010
• ITP Spring Show 2010
• I/O/I. The Senses of Machines

Press

• Make
• Gizmodo

One possible progression of the “Game of Life” on the Life Dress.

To light the dress, I controlled the LEDs through one master panel that contained a micro controller and multiplexers and connected to each of the light module cells.