I want to experience something as it is, to feel it, bypass the senses, or find a „sense of participation” — a direct access to empathy, to immediate understanding.

[…] I knock at the stone’s front door.
„It’s only me, let me come in.
I’ve come out of pure curiosity.
Only life can quench it.
I mean to stroll through your palace,
Translations as Icebergs, Translators as Navigators…
then go calling on a leaf, a drop of water.
I don’t have much time.
My mortality should touch you.”
„I’m made of stone,” says the stone,
„and must therefore keep a straight face.
Go away.
I don’t have the muscles to laugh.”
[…]

Wiesława Szymborska [trans. Stanisław Barańczak, Clare Cavanagh]

The film’s structure divides the work’s space into two worlds: a laboratory setting, where the main character is isolated and enclosed, and a natural world, open to sensory exploration. From a philosophical perspective, these two realms represent different modes of understanding: empirical and conceptual. The poetic narrative, woven with lines from Wisława Szymborska’s poem Conversation with a Stone, introduces the idea of a “sense of participation” — a concept of direct, empathic knowledge. Designer Iga Węglińska incorporates this notion into her project, using new technologies to explore it through interactive clothing. In the posthuman era, the film raises questions about the nature of knowledge and the redefinition of humanity, expanded by technological solutions.

The Emotional clothing consists of two polysensory silhouettes using the phenomenon of biofeedback, signaling psycho-physiological changes taking place in the user’s body, like: body temperature, galvanic skin response, heart rate or proprioception. The intelligent materials used in them are supposed to stimulate cognitive involvement and mindfulness – a „sense of taking part”. The designs act as a sensory prosthesis using unidirectional and bidirectional feedback, at the same time becoming a starting point for a new discussion on the role and function of clothing. The materials used in the design constitute a kind of bridge between what our skin knows and the world of advanced technology. [Iga Węglińksa]

Mila Łapko | photographer

Iga Węglińksa | fashion designer

model from the move: Oksenia Rybak
models: Emilia D. – GAGA models, Martyna P. – MANGO MODELS,
mua: Paula Ewa Krawczyk