Are you ready to experience the NU YOU?
Confined to her room in a shared House in 2020, designer Katrina Joseph (22) took comfort in music, games, and film to keep her sanity. Eventually inspiring her to create NU YOU.
She compulsively listened to artist GRIMES’ newly released album Miss Anthropocene and binged the Sci-fi series Altered Carbon which delves into a world where humans can have their consciousness downloaded. “If you die it can be recovered and ‘re-sleeved’ as they call it.”
Katrina isn’t a gamer but watches a lot of gameplay. Aspects of her collection were inspired by characters from Cyberpunk 2077, such as GRIMES’ character Lizzy Wizzy and more importantly Adam Smasher who was the influence for the coats. “He came on screen and I was like who is that? He was dark, heavy, and basically fully machine!” Focusing on cybernetics, Katrina’s concept was playing on “mixing humans with cyber-wear”.
The collection is influenced by sci-fi and dystopian movies, such as Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell which Katrina believes “set the tone” for later cyberpunk genres with its “floating, digital advertisements in the middle of the city and the push for cybernetic enhancement – a bit like plastic surgery which I am also obsessed with”. Her bodysuits act like a second skin with skin tone colours and flashes of “fuchsia pink”.
The collection gets its consumers thinking: if society does get to the point where cybernetic enhancement is just as normalised as plastic surgery “how much of yourself would you be willing to change?”
Text By Zheelana Cottam
Ydych chi’n barod i brofi’r NU YOU?
Wedi’i chyfyngu i’w hystafell mewn tŷ a rennir yn 2020, cymerodd y dylunydd Katrina Joseph (22) gysur mewn cerddoriaeth, gemau a ffilm i gadw’i phwyll. Yn y pen draw, fe’i hysbrydolodd i greu NU YOU.
Gwrandawodd drwy gymhelliad ar albwm newydd ei rhyddhau yr artist GRIMES, Miss Anthropocene, a binio’r gyfres ffugwyddonol ‘Altered Carbon’ sy’n ymchwilio i fyd lle gall pobl lawrlwytho’u hymwybod. Fel maen nhw’n dweud: “If you die it can be recovered and ‘re-sleeved’.”
Dydy Katrina ddim yn gemiwr ond mae’n gwylio llawer o chwarae gemau. Ysbrydolwyd agweddau ar ei chasgliad gan gymeriadau o Cyberpunk 2077, megis cymeriad GRIMES, Lizzy Wizzy ac yn bwysicach, Adam Smasher, a oedd yn ddylanwad ar gyfer y cotiau. “Daeth ar y sgrin ac roeddwn i fel pwy yw hwnna? Roedd yn dywyll, yn drwm ac yn y bôn yn beiriant llawn!” Gan ganolbwyntio ar seiberneteg, roedd cysyniad Katrina yn chwarae ar “gymysgu pobl â dillad seiber”. Roedd cysyniad Katrina yn chwarae ar “gymysgu pobl â seiberfwlio”.
Mae’r casgliad yn cael ei ddylanwadu gan ffilmiau ffugwyddonol a dystopaidd, megis Blade Runner a Ghost in the Shell, y mae Katrina yn credu ei fod yn “gosod y naws” ar gyfer genres seiberneteg diweddarach gyda’i “hysbysebion arnofiol, digidol yng nghanol y ddinas a’r ymdrech i wella seiberneteg – ychydig fel llawdriniaeth blastig y mae gennyf obsesiwn â hi hefyd”. Mae ei chorff yn gweithredu fel ail groen gyda lliwiau tôn y croen a fflachiadau o “binc ffiwsia”.
Mae’r casgliad yn cael ei ddefnyddwyr i feddwl: os yw cymdeithas yn cyrraedd y pwynt lle mae gwella seibernetig yr un mor normal â llawfeddygaeth blastig “faint ohonoch chi eich hun fyddech chi’n fodlon ei newid?”
Testun gan Zheelana Cottam
