Collaborators: Hillary Predko // Little Dada.

Working alongside a lyra dancer, Android Apparatus was built to work with the performer and the lyra, enhancing her performance without hindering her movement. We created a heat map along with the dancer, determining what areas of the body were in high contact with the hoop, and which areas had low contact. The piece was built to cover the non-dominant arm, and the chest. These areas do not make contact with the hoop, and were thus ideal areas to place the constructed armour.

An accelerometer was attached to the dancer while she rehearsed, and we collected data from her movements. This data was visualized using a custom Processing script, and integrated with the pattern pieces for the armour. We iteratively combined the data visualization with the pattern while laser cutting and testing the form. The final piece is laser cut vegetable tanned leather formed into shape using traditional leather moulding techniques.

The piece has LEDs that respond to an accelerometer built into the garment. As the dancer performs, the costume glows responsively, brightening and dimming, changing colour to compliment both the range and intensity of motion.

AndroidTO Performance 2017 from Lindy on Vimeo.

Collaborators: Hillary Predko // Little Dada
Role: Designer, artist, programmer, drone pilot.

Re:Familiar explores our relationship to the technological sublime. We have reimagined the body in relationship to the server room, a key site of information exchange. Cables, fans, and ethereal UV leds cover the body, in an embodiment of the infrastructure of technology. The dress is fabricated with a body suit built from Ethernet cables covered in photoluminescent pigments that wrap around the body, encasing the model. Her peplum armature contains blower fans arranged to lift and blow streams of silk at her hips.

This project features an AR Parrot drone carrying the train of a dress down the runway. The drone is controlled by custom software, and follows the model wherever she goes. Silk chiffon connects the woman to the drone – billowing and blowing as the propellers spin. Re:Familiar explores our desire to control technologies, casting the drone as a servant.

Part spectacle, part speculation, the Drone Dress has dazzled crowds on the runway at Make Fashion, and exhibited with an AR version of the runway performance alongside digital storytelling agency No Campfire Required.

RE:Familiar from Lindy on Vimeo.

Long Exposure Festival from Lindy on Vimeo.

Toronto Arts Council funded

Earth Resist, Ontario Place 2018-2019
Ryan Longo, Shan Honoridez, L Wilkins

By Nadine Lessio & Lee Wilkins

Machine Yearning is generated from personal ads around the internet. It is the machine reaching back.

Collaborators: Lindy Wilkins, Hillary Predko: LittleDada.ca, Alanna Predko: installation and fabrication. Tom Hobson: Textiles. Matt Nish-Lapidus: Audio. Special thanks to: Daemon Retren, Dolly Deals, Rhys Mendes, Shaughn Martel, Dani Jones, Meena Dandelion.
For EDIT Festival 2017
Role: Designer, artist, electronics and Luminaudio

This installation explores untold stories of women in the space industry, both historical and contemporary, through the construction of an interactive environment that references early computational technologies. Little Old Lady Memory, or rope core memory encoded the programs that enabled the Apollo missions, woven by women in factories. We are drawing upon the delegation of craft as ‘women’s work’, and revealing the ways these crafts have supporting advanced scientific invention. This installation also explores the relationship between jacquard looms and computation, and the ways in which the textile industry laid groundwork for early programming languages.

The work is intended as a tool for learning the rich history of innovation that brought humanity off of our planet. Audio can be explored through an interactive light tapestry, using Luminaudio technology. Custom devices are used to decode the audio signals, so listeners can interact with to reveal the unsung stories of female computer programmers.. It is through exploration that we become curious and we hope to inspire all kinds of people to imagine the possibilities beyond our atmosphere.

We created custom punch cards, based on the format of Fortran cards. Over 4000 cards were punched and sewn together, commemorating the repetitive labour that went into these early forays into the stars.

Litle Old Lady Memory, EDIT 2017 from Lindy on Vimeo.

Collaborators: Hosted by the festival of curiosity and Make Fashion in Dublin. Photographer Kelly Hofer. Producer: Kenzie Housego and Catherine Larose.
Role: Technical director, programmer, electronics and design development.

Featured designers:

Ally Nolan (Overall Winner)
Queen of the Night 
Curiosity Studio 2017 future/fashion Design Award
Róisín Pierce
‘Contact / Comfort’
Rebecca Marsden 
‘Ionic Wave’
Maureen Selina Laverty
‘Where’s my Arm Hole / My Head’s Stuck’ 
Danielle Jordan
‘Inside Out’
Dearbhla O’ Beirne
‘Cloud Bursting’ 

Collaborators: Hillary Predko, Alanna Predko, Anthony Swan for the Hand Eye Society Ball 2016
Role: Programming, electronics, artist

Annual General Mischief from Lindy on Vimeo.

Collaborators: Hillary Predko / Little Dada for Maker Festival 2015 Launch Party
Role: Programmer, Artist, Laser operator

Toastraits is an interactive installation that allows people to have their faces etched into toast! Step 1, take a photo, step 2, eat your toasty face.
This featured a custom piece of software that converted webcam photos into assembled laser-able files across a local server.

Make Friends is a meet up hosted by Little Dada since 2015 in Toronto. We invite Makers, creators and educators to discuss the future and current state of the Maker movement in Toronto. This event has been hosted in dozens of spaces across the GTA, exploring business models, hosting workshops, and creating a more connected community.

Make Friends Monthly from Lindy on Vimeo.

Cyborg Garden is an MFA thesis collection by Lindy Wilkins. This work explores the cybernetic intersection of plants, electronics cities and bodies through examining their fundamental shared behaviours.

garden from Lindy on Vimeo.

Nuit Blanche installation 2016 with Vanessa Shaver, Rhys Mendes featuring audio transmitting through light (Luminaudio) narratives in Site 3 coLaboratory.

2016 NB ORBS post crash edit 5b (1) from Lindy on Vimeo.

Collaborators: Nadine Lessio, Tom Hobson, Jon Griemen, Josh McLain
Role: Organizer

The Stupid Shit No One Needs and Terrible Ideas hackthon is an annual tradition to create complete garbage in the world

Stupid Shit No One Needs And Terrible Ideas Toronto from Lindy on Vimeo.

Splice is a project about genetic mutations. Each suspended shape is programmed to represent a genetic mutation. There are 4 types of shape behaviours, each representing TCGA, and are sequenced to mimic the human genome.

Sagan Yee art / unity programming / art

Lindy Wilkins peripheral fabrication

Nadine Lessio networking / arduino programming

Alicia Contestabile Producer / PR / magical girl

Jenn Woodall character art

Maggie McLean music

Punk Prism Power v1.0 was made for the DMG Killer Interfaces jam in Feb 2015. It runs on Unity, and uses some rad tiny Arduinos called Light BLue Beans.