Modes for Urban Moods are a suite of wearable coping mechanisms that explore relationships in public spaces and materialize invisible social networks.

Can they circumvent the daily rhythms of the city and provide city dwellers a moment out of their natural order?

They are tactile, spatial, sculptural expressions fashioned to the body; they transform real space into the whimsy of an animated situation; they rupture time. They are bizarre and eccentric responses to situations that critique and identify the existence or absence of conditions.They transform meanings, senses, and dynamics.

They introduce the surreal into real life situations. They negotiate social boundaries by materializing the unseen. They humanize the technologies we urge to incorporate in our lives.

Modes explore dynamic structures fashioned to the body for use in public space. How can a mutating wearable accessory reflect one's experience in urban space? Can it be an emotional tool, a remedy to urban illnesses such as stress or anxiety? Can it effectively communicate moods?

Inflatable structures have intrigued me since my undergraduate studies in Theatre Design; most of my three-dimensional creations were mutating, flexible structures. Lightweight materials opened a new realm of possibilities. At the same time I found a similar magic in the two-dimensional art of animation.

I'm intrigued by the political and social consequences of merging interactive artwork with our physicality. I'm interested in our urgency to incorporate technology in our everyday life in order to enhance our senses and augment our abilities.  I soon found that wearable technology provides another means of blending the fantastic with the real world.

As my exploration progressed, the wearable became the animation itself. It was the perfect combination: expressive, personal and bizarre. And by involving the body into the action, it incorporates it into the 'projection'. It then becomes performable by the user and, by instigating responses, it involves others into the play. It is not precisely the interactive animation I had in mind when I arrived here, but as a collaborative tool for expression it fulfills what I hoped to achieve.

The combination of the above led me to the research of experimental models of architecture, fashion and art associated with new technologies, skins that morph and give life to new shapes and meanings. Like the ones experimented by Archigram and, more recently, by fashion designers like Hussein Chalayan, artists like Alicia Framis or Lucy Orta and designers like Ingrid Hora. Their different approaches regarding the creation of borders and orders, the personal and the built (place, city, body) are modes for the understanding of sign systems and technologies of power. They are a critique to the establishment and they are the networking of invisible spaces that have been left out of different protocols. And that is shown in their work as a social commentary - the search for the ideal, for the utopian models of interaction between beings and their environment.

These works are activities, they are performable - therefore, they are interactive.

I wanted my work to be interactive with New York (its culture and the possibilities it offers) and to be a reflection on my personal experience based on those daily rhythms.

While in New York, I experienced stressful moments in my daily commute, as I did with noise pollution. There were moments I wished I was empowered to change situations. Why not try? Some wearable / animated sculptures could be a good diversion, and expanding ourselves and adapting to the environment was my preferred solution. By creating extensions, thin skins, when feeling claustrophobic and stressed, as a manifesto, could be the attempt to make one more comfortable and cope with the adversities of living. And, most likely, it could also turn out to be a collaborative activity, a performance that would need the help of the community to be executed.