Tapis Magique

Functional Yarns and Fabrics (Conductive, Piezoresistive, Thermoplastic, Luminous), Non-functional Yarns (High-flex Polyester and Synthetic Mink), and Electronics. Intersect by Lexus, Tokyo, Japan. SXSW, Austin, USA. January 2021 – March 2022.

Tapis Magique is a pressure-sensitive, machine-knitted electronic textile carpet that generates three-dimensional sensor data based on body postures and gestures and drives an immersive sonic environment in real-time. The work unveils dancers’ creative, unconventional possibilities of agency, intimacy, and improvisation over choreography and musical composition through a textile interface. The dense geometrical patterns of the stars scattered around the brushstroke details in the tapis represent 1800 pressure-sensing pixels and are inspired by the galactic space. Parametric design transformed these patterns into a 3-D spatial illusion to illustrate the multi-dimensionality of the sensor data. The outer-facing textile glows in the dark from the luminous yarns, bringing out the starry effects for night performance.

Several musical pieces were designed to invoke various emotions to inspire conversations between the choreographer and the instrument. Behind the scenes runs a digital modular synthesizer made of several patches, each for a different type of performance. The incoming stream of MIDI data is first fed into quantizer modules that align the notes with major, minor, and pentatonic scales and mystic chords. The sounds are then generated by a collection of subtractive, additive, and granular synthesizers. “Venus Sunrise”, one of the performance pieces, presents a metaphorical celestial sound of the universe as the dancer is twirling around the stars, traveling through space and time.

Tapis Magique demonstrates the interplay between art and technology, highlighting the deep emotional link between contemporary textiles, dance, and music through the physical-digital connection. It provides a canvas for dancers and sound artists to modulate sound, perform and compose a musical piece based on choreography and vice versa; it also creates an auditory-gestural synesthetic environment that invites and encourages audiences to interact and express themselves with the tapis, as they experience a magical connection that stimulates the body and mind.

More information about the project