Cool Effects Light Shirt

(The “me” in this post refers to we make money not art folks.) Leah Buechley and Nwanua Elumeze have recently developed a light-shirt that plays the ‘game of life’ with cool blinking patterns. The lights come on and animate vibrantly, captured by me on video 1 & 2 . The shirt also has an button for interacting with the lights, adding a blinker to the center of the shirt’s grid to change the animating automata.

At a recent demoing session I attended, people gathered around Leah to watch the show and learn about the development of this cyber-fashion wear. After viewers had played with the display for a bit, Nwanua pulled out his pda, revealing the wireless programming capabilities of the shirt. Users were excited to draw new patterns and watch ‘life’ grow and change.