Open Up is a symbiotic outfit that creates an interaction between the host and it’s surrounding. It measures the displacement in a space and gives its wearer a new sense of the environment. Inspiration for this project came from studying animal behaviors and how they attract each other. 

Illuminum While wearing the Illuminum garment you are going to experiment a new way of thrilling the audience. By reacting intuitively to the light you are able to surprise the audience with an elegant and unexpected performance. A new dance philosophy can evolve based on a garment that reacts to the absence of light. 

Trailblazer Hey running enthusiast! You can’t take a holiday without getting a runner’s high do you? How about combining running with exploring amazing places? Let the Trailblazer guide you off the beaten track without getting lost.

Sound Embracers is a new instrument which links body movements directly to sound generation. The knitted collar with integrated stretch sensors and speakers is a surprising interface to create soundscapes.

“2.3/seg” is the first project Alejandro showed us, which studies the death and birth rates of the human race around the world. The question posed was how often are people born and how often do they die? Alejandro underlined that he was not so interested in the accuracy, but more in the concept of this.
The results showed that 4 people are born and 2 people die every second, resulting in 2 new people on the planet per second. The data used to generate this project was collected through the World Census Bureau, and conceptually inspired by the work of Jagadish Chandra Bos, and in particular his invention of the Creschograph, a technology that allows a person to see a plant grow in real time.
“The laboratory to explore the birth of ideas” was a complex technology inspired by his father, who taught him how to generate electricity.
Alejandro then went on to explain how another of his projects was inspired by a dream in which fruit communicated…”hello world”. Would it be possible to make a computer out of fruit? An organic computer?
He then started working with ph levels present in fruit to generate a binary system, starting with the use of lemon and tangerine. This makes us reflect on how we create technology, questioning its historical generator, that is for attack or defence mechanisms…this could be a poetic way to create technology!
The fourth and final project showed was inspired by an image of the northern lights, a sort of connection between magic and nature. But what are these northern lights, and how are they created?
These are a consequence of solar explosions, the earth is therefore a natural sensor of these explosions. Alejandro wanted to find a way to get connected with them, a poetic way of depicting these explosions. He created a system that would turn the energy of these explosions into data, and in return transformed this data first into fire (a natural phenomenon becomes data to then rebecome a natural phenomenon), and then in later versions of this projects into explosions using gun powder. This was called “8 minutes (when the sun explodes we explode)”.
Finally, sometime was spent discussing the workshop underway with the MAI students, “white box” that aims to break the concept of technology as a black box, rendering technology more open and accessible, that is white, allowing us to experience the poetic, nature and magic of technology in everyday life.

Alejandro Tamayo at the IaaC

Lecture “Technology: between magic and everyday life“

Alejandro Tamayo is an artist, researcher and teacher working in the intersections between artistic practice, science, technology and everyday life. He has been a tutor at Medialab Prado interactivos? workshops including Technologies of Laughter (Mexico) and Neighborhood Science (Madrid) and has teaching for over eight years at various art and design schools in Colombia including the Art Department from Los Andes University and the School of Fine Arts from the National University. He has been a guest speaker in various venues including Pixelache University-Reinventing the Teaching Situation (Helsinki), CIANT gallery (Prague), and the International Image Festival (Colombia).