The Electric Suit is a technological oracle from the future -delivered to the present to teach humanity the ways of balancing energy. This entity is half creature and half electricity. He uses dance to release the flowing motion of electrical energy from his electromagnetic field and into the world. Just don't get caught up in the glowing nitrogen or oxygen plasma. Seriously.

This performance deals with the transformation of the body. As a cashier my body has grown into the task I need to perform. The repetitive movement of opening a bag has become simplified into a simple flick of the wrist. I am interested in the body as a mechanical instrument capable of complete efficiency. The more I repeat an action the more I improve my labour productivity. The more I comprehend a physical gesture, the more it becomes a dance. The performance began with me opening seventy paper bags as fast I could. Then I proceeded to attach the bags to my grocery apron through hooks to transform my body into object I was transforming. The paper bags started the performance being small and compact and ended up consuming my body and becoming truly expansive.

7 min. 30 sec.
February, 2008

This piece deals with the relationship I have with materials. I created this mask through a competition held by JSHOES. I was given five shoes and asked to transform them into something that is not a shoe. Using a limited materials allows me to concentrate on the actual transformation of the material. Although I wanted to complete transform the show I wanted to maintain some of its inherent qualities. The shoes are made out of leather. Leather is made out of the hides and skins of animals. I wanted to pay homage to the spirit of the animal. letting my hands be my eyes, I transformed the leather shoe back into the animal. There is also something ironic about making something for the face that I supposed to be for the feet.

Detail of the competition are below.


[Excerpt from the Baltimore City Paper]
By Bret McCabe | Posted 10/2/2008

" A few weeks back J Shoes, whose corporate offices are based in Owings Mills, offered the Maryland Institute College of Art's Fibers Department the opportunity to re-purpose single shoes left over from its design samples. The proposed question (as articulated in a press release): "Could a contemporary shoe be transformed into an entirely different object with an entirely different purpose?" The shoe manufacturer proposed this first collaboration as a design contest with cash prizes, with judges to be (again from the press release) "the MICA Fiber Department chair, Style Magazine Baltimore editor, US J SHOES Marketing Manager and J SHOES representatives."


Sixteen undergrads accepted the challenge, and their resulting creations debuted last night in the Rosenberg Gallery on the second floor of the Brown Center. And what the students came up with--which range from the fashionably practical, such as gloves and hats and corsets, to entire dresses and even some outlandishly imaginative pieces--are fun, inventive, and witty. Personal faves include Samuel Shea's "Animal Mask," which looks like the patchwork rococo attempt of an okapi to camouflage itself as a camel (and was named the contest winner) "