James Hartunian

I am interested in the spaces that define the body; rather, the space surrounding the body that defines it as well as the environment that the said body experiences. Whether that’s the interface between the skin and clothes or moving off the body and creating environments that negotiate human experience. This has evolved into an interest in textiles/polymers, technology, the body, and human experience.

The negotiations of my current work take the form of hybrid body creation, somewhere between augmentation, exploitation, and cyborg, to assess our role in spaces and reflect upon the preconceived assumptions we have on what a body is, what a garment is, and what a textile is limited to. I have begun to mediate human behavior and sensorial experience through the techno-cyborgian-wearables I construct, intending to redefine the construct of what our body is and how it interacts with the environment. The integration of electronics in my work serves to challenge the ubiquity of garments and fibers in our everyday and help stimulate speculation about new futures, those possible and unfeasible.