SHOWstudio and Agusta Yr Create 3D Animations for Yang Li S/S 20
In partnership with SHOWstudio, Icelandic video director Agusta Yr has created a 3D animated experience for Yang Li's Spring/Summer 2020 show, to accompany a live performance by Scottish musicians The Jesus and Mary Chain. Having debuted in Paris at Yang Li's Spring/Summer 2020 presentation on the multidimensional screens of La Gaîté Lyrique, the digital experience has been translated for an online viewers and is exclusively available to stream here on SHOWstudio.com.
The 3D animated projections replace a traditional runway show - models walking single file down the runway, you know the drill - instead, showcasing the clothes via 3D scans of models clad in the S/S 20 collection. Set to four songs by The Jesus and Mary Chain, the plasticated figures twirl and parade across a series of futuristic landscapes, including a cyber bedroom, rocky islands and a cityscape, before moving into a synchronised dance routine. The overall effect is of a Y2K video game on acid, simultaneously enthralling and entertaining, as well as a little disturbing, in keeping with Yr's absurdist aesthetic.
Agusta Yr - known as @iceicebabyspice on Instagram - grew up between Miami and Iceland, and turned to 3D experimentation after becoming bored with photography and video, which she had studied in New York. Her surrealist digital aesthetic has been embraced by the fashion community, Yr having created videos for the likes of Charles Jeffrey LOVERBOY, as well as modelling for emerging designer Sinéad O'Dwyer and for Rihanna's Savage x Fenty S/S 20 extravaganza, which was streamed by Amazon Prime in September 2019.
The Spring/Summer 2020 event is not Yang Li's first rodeo at pushing the boundaries of what a fashion show can be. His Spring/Summer 2020 collection is entitled GREATEST HITS: AUTOMATIC SHOW II, the 'automatic' show being Li's name for when he hands control of the show deployment over to his creative collaborators. The first 'automatic' show, for Autumn/Winter 2019, explored the designer-model dynamic, with 27 individuals in ten cities photographing themselves remotely and releasing the images simultaneously via Instagram.
This time, the 'automatic' show cedes control of a live event to musical and artistic collaborators: SHOWstudio and Agusta Yr, who have created the animation, and The Jesus and Mary Chain, who are performing live. Li has collaborated with a number of underground and cult musicians over the years including Blixa Bargeld of Einstürzende Neubauten, Jehnny Beth and Genesis P-Orridge. The Jesus and Mary Chain, founded by songwriting brothers Jim and William Reid in 1983, are the latest to join Li's hall of fame.
The ‘Grande Salle’ concert hall of La Gaîté Lyrique is equipped with a 360-degree video projection device, allowing for a new level of immersive fashion show experience. The version of Yr's video streaming here on SHOWstudio has been rearranged to be viewable through a single screen.
Further destabilising the idea of a closed-door fashion show, a limited number of tickets were offered to fans of YANG LI, The Jesus and Mary Chain, SHOWstudio and La Gaîté Lyrique through their respective social media platforms.