While opera and open source hardware might seem like an unusual combination, for the world premier of Primero Sueño performed at The Met - Cloisters, wearable technology was baked into the vision from the start. When bringing to life the seminal poem by Sor Juana de la Cruz, costume Designer Andrea Lauer was tasked with creating wearables inspired by escudo de monja, devotional objects worn by nuns in New Spain. These wearables not only enhanced the storytelling, but fulfilled key technical needs in the sensitive museum space: sound, light & projection.

The goal when forming the Escudo team was to gather creative technologists who could bring their own expertise to realizing 7 individual wearables with different technical capabilities and form factors.

Kari joined the team as the Associate Costume Designer and as a fellow for Vision Into Art Impact Lab, a Research & Development (R&D) Lab that explores new models for creating interdisciplinary music and arts projects. Her research topics were:

Open Source Hardware in Opera

Eco-Friendly Prototyping

Materiality and the Narrative

Click for GitHub documentation of Wearable Projector Integration