PT / EN
TL;DR an omni-directional full-body audio monitoring suit.
For his solo show "Six of one and half a dozen of the other" (Gallery MOMO, Cape Town, RSA) Pedro Pires created a series of body suits dedicated to exploring, mapping and documenting the city. The concept was to have a set of second skins to engage the environment, thus testing boundaries of place, identity and belonging.
We collaborated on building the Audio Suit, which stemmed from the idea of having a full-body wearable membrane to monitor and record 360-degree audio input, thus affording enhanced, whole-body awareness. This evolved into the final design comprising a custom-built 8-channel mixer built by mastering engineer Ryoji Noumi (Music of New Reference, Osaka, JP) along with custom microphones of various polar patterns sewn into a jumpsuit. The result was a wearable audio mixer/recorder enabling the user to effectively monitor and focus the surrounding aural context in real-time using a simple mechanical interface. Given its nature, the Audio Suit becomes a simultaneous recording and performance piece.
