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[The Black Tee Project] （中文版本請按此）

::NEWS::

[Updated on December 18, 2009]

Black Tee at 2009 Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism / Architecture!

Sponsored by Videotage and produced with the assistance of Zhou Wei and CPU:PRO, Michael Yuen's iconic work Black Tee is presented in the 2009 Hong Kong & Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism / Architecture.

Black Tee is an intervention into the official Biennale t-shirt. Fifty limited edition black t-shirts have been produced with financial support from Videotage for the staff of the Biennale, each mounted with a single blue LED on the back.
The shirts are finished with stitched electronic circuitry integrated into the fabric using conductive silver threads and conductive silver velcro. Complete with a lightweight detachable power pack, the shirt is a durable and washable piece of wearable art.
The t-shirts are simultaneously performing both their “natural” functions as clothing and their new function as modified object, mobile distraction and intervention in the world they pass through. The piercing, dancing lights following behind each wearer create a slight alternative vision, for those who notice, within the clothing.
With striking minimalism, the artist Michael Yuen’s slightest alteration reconsiders the wearable and the wearer.

The Biennale will be running through 27 February 2010.

For more about the Biennale, click here.

For more about the work, click here.

To purchase one of the Videotage edition Black Tee, contact us at 2573-1869 or info@videotage.org.hk.

THE BLACK-TEE PROJECT
Artist: Michael Yuen (Australia)
Form: Wearable art
Price: HKD280 (including a rechargeable battery and a charger). To purchase, please contact us.

A series of limited edition black t-shirts are produced each mounted with a single bright blue
LED on the back of a T-shirt. With striking minimalism, the artist Michael Yuen’s slightest
alteration reconsiders the wearable and the wearer.

Each shirt has been finished with the hand stitching of the circuitry. Using conductive threads, the
circuitry for the t-shirts is integrated into the fabric. Complete with a lightweight detachable power
pack, the shirt is a durable and washable piece of wearable art.

Michael Yuen has worked with technology in art over the last six years. His installation work is
attracting growing international attention. This is his first wearable art project and continues his
interest in the junction of technology and the body. It was developed at the reSkin Wearable
Technology Lab which Yuen attended at the invitation of the Australian Network for Art and
Technology (ANAT).
Interfacing with the body through technology is the key to Yuen’s practice; he has extensively used
camera based software systems and sound composition to achieve innovative forms of interactivity.
Some contemporary craft (especially fashion and jewellery) also explores this junction of technology
and the body.
Yuen has a continued interest in developing physical real techniques for interfacing art with the body
has led to practices that across . The Black-tee Project references the work of Australian artist Stelarc
into the post-human body using robotics interfaced with the body, the work of cybernetics pioneer
Professor Kevin Warwick at the University of Reading attaching ultrasonic sensor to nerve ending
allowing him to see in the dark, and Australian jeweller Susan Cohn’s use of science fiction to inspire
designs for her Techno Craft body of work.

Yuen’s primary artistic concern is the search for an art that directly affects the brain — a concept he
refers to as DirectArt. The idea of direct transfer of a concept or an experience from one individual’s
brain to another’s suggests the possibility for pure (loss-less) transaction of concepts. This proposition
creates a set of physical and conceptual questions framing my artistic practice. By exploring this area,
Yuen questions the use of technologies such as the bionic-eye or neuron-silicon junctions as possible
new communication tools and contemplates the reduction of ‘noise to information ratios’ via a brainto-
brain transfer of art as an experience. Exploring these areas the artist creates deeply immersing
installations using sound and light.
Craft or fashion based art and technology based art are conditioned by different drivers; each has
philosophies, language, history, methods and tools. Convergence of these areas offers a rich field for
experimentation, with opportunities to break new ground in the amalgamation of technology and
craft. Yuen’s use of the wearable has allowed the artist to create a new expression of the desire to
connect technology to people and individuals to each other.