Dress Codes


In just a few days, some of the art world's most prominent scholars will descend upon Dallas, Texas for the annual conference of the College Art Association. Each year there are a number of intriguing exhibitions on in conjunction with the symposium, and the Leonardo Education Forum-sponsored exhibition, Social Fabrics, looks like a must-see. Curated by Susan E. Ryan and Patrick Lichty, the show's subtitle is "Wearable + Media + Interconnectivity" and the selected works demonstrate "convergences between individual expression and statement making, on the one hand, and the phenomenology of 'network society' on the other." If that sounds a bit brainy to you, consider that the exhibition is a tricked-out fashion show in which artists combine wearable art, locative media, sensor technology, and social commentary on life in a high tech society. As the curators point out, "Fashion and digital technology have been interdependent at least since the development of Jacquard's loom in the 1800's." But now digital code and dress codes have merged, allowing artists and their muses to express themselves in provocative new ways. - Marisa Olson