Electric Dress

Electric dress is a simple and formless dress which is made by wires and flashing, multi-coloured light bulbs.

"In Electric Dress, Tanaka seemed to fuse technology and the flesh. During the original performance, in fact, some people became concerned that she would electrocute herself; and in Japan, the light of Hiroshima, which X-rayed the body, quickly came to mind. But Tanaka’s fusion went well beyond academic commentary on technology and women’s issues. She became, in her dress, a kind of twinkling building on the horizon and, by extension, a symbol of the modern Asian city. She anticipated the delirium of light that is Tokyo. A city, like a woman in a dress, can be a mysterious object of desire. Tanaka’s light conceals as it reveals."[1]

The video shows the work as a sculpture, not as a wearable garment as Tanaka envisioned.

[1] Mark Stevens, "Everything Is Illuminated - Atsuko Tanaka’s plugged-in dress has managed to do what most other performance art can’t: maintain its power for decades," New York Magazine, Sep 27, 2004 [2]

[2] http://ambientawareness.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/atsuko-...