Please note: I share this project as a reflection of long-term interest in creatively engaging speculative cultural narratives (rather than design excellence), and as a departure point for current creative-theoretical interests with a more critical mind.
Project Deliverables & Role
Illustrations and flats for a 10-piece collection with 3 garments per design, based on an ethnic group of your choice. I worked independently.
Project Description
Having been intrigued and disturbed by the rampant role of Christianity in the electoral rhetoric of the 2008 presidential campaign, my goal was to create the ideal utilitarian uniform for my chosen ethnic group of Evangelical Christians’ success in gaining the majority power of the U.S. government and resulting internment camps for non-believers and the daily procedure for conversions. The procedure took place in a Rotor Ride Barrel, which after the internees entered, commenced to rotate to the point of creating a centrifugal effect roughly 3g, permitting the floor to drop while leaving internees stuck to the wall. The troop of ten Evangelical sentinels emerged in the pit of the barrel, roughly ten feet below the feet of the internees. In their outfitting, I focused on the sentinels’ needs for ideally harnessing the energy between them to channel holy conversion of their spinning prisoners.
The garments were all connected to help conduct and channel the heat of their prayers as a singular force in the army of God, pulsing through a range of age and size of the troop members in ecstatic dance. There were three layers of these suits, each based in manipulated plastic for containing the heat and upping the effects of chanting and sweat. The first layer was thin panels with air-activated iron heat packs sewn in to make artificial additional heat against their ecstatically moving and chanting bodies. The second layer was thick and made from clusters of melted shrink wrap coating the inside of a vinyl fabric. The third layer was made from donated Tupperware that was melted into sculptural forms meant to induce terror as it also let out pockets of heat through selected openings. In addition, there was a device called the “fetus shooter” built into one of the suits, which intermittently would eject a (fake) screaming and kicking fetus attached to a (fake) umbilical cord into the prisoners faces so they could not attain sensorial adjustment, securing the effectiveness of the procedure.🝏