Workshop: Fashion & Technology – ECHO – Art, Design and Technology, Dubai 2017

ECHO is the first festival in the Middle East’s that is a hybrid art fair where Art, Design and Technology intersect; for local and international artists, businesses, galleries, and minds to connect, collaborate and grow. ECHO facilitates opportunities for exchange, showcasing and collaboration among artists, art tech artists, designers, musicians, engineers, creatives, entrepreneurs and scientists.

For the festival Diffus Design participated with two workshops where we explored how the technology arising from our contemporary societies can become fruitful tools for renewed interpretations of more traditional materials and performances.

ECHO – Dubai

This first ECHO event was a 3-day event with four ground pillars: Art Tech Fair, a conference, a range of workshops and a sound festival. It took place in Dubai’s ‘Design District 3’, under the theme, “Interacting with the future” and focused on advanced technologies through artistic forms as well as a variety of sound, visual and digital mediums, installations and performances. We participated in the conference and hosted two workshops.

Combining cultures

Meeting this interesting melting pot of cultures, innovation, tradition and technology present in Dubai we focused on how tangible media, craft and traditional and local performance procedures can enhance and enrich each other. We explored how sensor technologies, networked communication systems and reactive materials can offer new creative perspectives to ageless forms of sensual and meditative expressions that is so deeply rooted in the local culture.

Credit
Workshop design, concept and leadership: Hanne-Louise Johannesen and Michel Guglielmi (Diffus Design)
Partner: ECHO Dubai