bart hess presents work with me people during milan design week 2014

bart hess presents ‘work with me people’ happening
image © designboom

during milan design week 2014 dutch fashion / material designer bart hess is presenting a sequel to the installation ‘work with me people’ by MU during dutch design week 2012. for this occasion, hess installed a sweatshop-like intervention where dozens of visitors work on the various textiles for products that are distributed among bart’s international clientele. ‘work with me people’ refers to the discrepancy between, on the one hand, the post-fordian creative industry, and on the other the huge amount of work required to sustain it. the innovative format of the project offers insight into the production process of the couture textiles by hess and invites visitors to take part in making them.

visitors work with bart hess
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material manipulator bart hess has invaded the digital world with his human hybrids and latex mutants. he covered lady gaga in slime for her ‘born this way’ video and album and created futuristic fur from thousands of needles in communal workshops. his projects have an unworldly, futuristic appearance owing to the use of materials that are actually not intended for clothing. but despite the futuristic appearance, he first uses extremely intensive and manual production techniques, which, in reality, has little to do with modern technology.

loading drops for the collaborative process
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bart hess explores several fields combining material studies, animation and photography and has a very personal and recognizable signature. with his designs he is able to use new and existing materials in a very innovative way and he seems to tap into new worlds.

detail of the latex skins hanging to dry
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as part of the intervention, hess designed black lab coats, each outfitted with yellow latex gloves and lavalier microphones that transmitted strange, devil-like voices to a speaker system in the room. throughout the show, hess would speak in this voice, encouraging the public to participate in the process.

stretched latex over a canvas full of drops from the public
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detail of the latex skin
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bart hess creates mussels out of plastic spoons
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detail of finished mussels

plastic spoons get a retina glued on the outer surface
image © designboom

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