Abstract

The body in performance art is customized to follow certain conceptual parameters, namely visual or metaphorical, following the narrative discourse implied in the performance practice, often using fashion references. That leads to diverse approaches in costume design that push the body to other boundaries beyond its own, either material or immaterial, enabling or disabling it. By analyzing case studies that can give us insight into the performer’s user-experience and the spectator’s immersion, we understand the role of design in changing the body, through costumes and textiles that dematerialize it somehow. Those are based on an ergonomic approach centered on the emotions implied in artistic performative works that take the body as their own simulacrum. Usability and user-experiences are framed before the usage of the body in experimental practices involving costumes that shape its own capabilities, structure and reading.