Torsolovely is a digital landscape that captures small moments, transforming clothing into something more than its everyday use-into a vessel of memories.
I was inspired by the story of Agnes Richter. Richter was an Austrian asylum patient from the turn of the last century who, without access to pen and paper recorded her memories using needle and thread—sewing these memories into the body of her institution jacket. This project is a modern-day response to the jacket of Agnes Richter.
Feeling my own isolation during graduate school, my awareness of touch (or the absence thereof) became heightened and resulted in a two-month study during which I cataloged and recorded experiences of being touched. For the study, I mapped a set of zones onto my body.
Each touch was recorded with a set of standard data points, such as date, time and zone, as well as more personal impressions, such as sound, smell, and links to memories of the past. This data became the foundation of a topographical map of my body that informed both the design of the jacket and how each zone was composed and activated.
When touched, the zone triggers a “memory composition”–a collage of recorded sound that relates to the cumulative data recorded about that zone. The jacket then becomes the costume for an interactive performance between the public and myself. Touch releases the sounds into the world, giving a new life to the collected memories and creating new stories that continue the history that is woven into mine.
