iluminar: procesión tecnológica by moritz waldemeyer and carlos ortega

iluminar: procesión tecnológica by moritz waldemeyer, carlos ortega and lydia romero
photo © moritz waldemeyer

as part of this year’s abierto mexicano de diseño designers moritz waldemeyer and carlos ortega collaborated with choreographer lydia romero to bring technology, fashion and dance to the historic center of mexico city. for ‘iluminar: procesión tecnológica’ waldemeyer and ortega worked together to create architecturally inspired skirts which were worn by a combination of dancers, performers and acrobats.

each of the sculptural plastic skirts were fitted with innovative LED technology, developed by waldemeyer, that emitted an array of colors and animations while the performance took place. applying parametric architecture principals the skirts have a multi faceted shape. the LED’s applied to the underside of the skirts allows light to seep out the multiple cut outs giving an indirect illumination to the performance.

70 performers took part in a procession through mexico city downtown on the opening and close of the AMD 2014
photo © moritz waldemeyer

designboom (DB) spoke to fashion moritz waldemeyer (MW) and carlos ortega (CO) to learn more…

DB: how did the collaboration come about?

CO: we both know gala fernandez, one of the directors of this year’s abierto mexicano de diseño, she had the idea that we could work together on something and connected us by e-mail about two months ago.

MW: we started talking about fashion and architecture and how we could combine the two things – that was the angle to the whole project – hence the look is very architectural.

CO: from the beginning we were on the same page creatively and had similar ideas about what we wanted to make, everything started to come together very quickly.

the skirt is laser cut plastic and the lights are LEDs programmed with arduinos
photo © moritz waldemeyer

the choreography of the performance was by lydia romero
photo © moritz waldemeyer

DB: please can you tell us more about the concept and final design?

CO: the theme of this year’s abierto is processes, that was something that we agreed our solution should tie into. we started talking about processors and microchips and other electronic components and wondering how we could reference them in an interesting way.

MW: we knew that because of the time constraints we would need to come up with something quite simple in its form and construction and that helped us in a way. the final design for the garments is very simple and ‘graphic’ which worked well with the lighting because the pieces are very distinctive.

CO: the simplicity also helped us with production – we had to create 70 pieces for the performance in just a few weeks. the skirt is laser cut plastic and the lights are LEDs programmed with arduinos.

applying parametric architecture principals the skirts have a multi faceted shape
photo © moritz waldemeyer

architecturally inspired skirts which were worn by a combination of dancers, performers and acrobats
photo © moritz waldemeyer

DB: what was the biggest challenge of the project?

CO: everything was quite straight forward in terms of design. but it was a challenge finding all the materials in time – the logistics were quite tight!

MW: the guys at adafruit helped us out a lot with the components we needed. we were sweating on things passing customs for a moment but thankfully everything turned out perfect.

the performance was the result of a two month-long collaboration between the designers and choreographer
photo © moritz waldemeyer

DB: what part of the project are you most satisfied with?

CO: the choreography turned out really well!

MW: yes! that was the part we had least involvement with but lydia romero did a terrific job with it. the dancers got into the project with a passion and that really made the whole experience for me.

CO: we gave lydia very basic directions – that we were thinking about technology, gears, processes and she took that input and did an incredible job with it.