Huidhonger (Skin Hunger) begins with a social question: how can touch be reimagined for people who experience limited physical contact in daily life? Conductive garments convert touch into sound and light, making intention palpable: a gentle stroke sounds tender, a firm grip distorts the sound. The wearables are used in performances and installations with people who often lack touch, such as the elderly or people with disabilities, together with professional dancers. This creates a shared multi-sensory experience in which movement, fashion, technology and care come together, and touch is reinvented and redesigned.
Lola Ilegems is a Belgian designer, performer and producer who explores the boundaries between textiles, technology and the human body. She develops costumes and objects that function as performative instruments: they make touch, movement and sound visible and audible. In this way, she uses technology not as something distant, but as a means of strengthening connection and intimacy. Her work moves between fashion and performance, with technology and interaction at its core.
Kika Ilegems is a multidisciplinary dancer, choreographer, and performer based between Antwerp and Brussels. Her work blends movement, theater, and visual elements into poetic experiences, often exploring touch, connection, and presence. She creates for stage and film, leads workshops, and collaborates widely, bringing both artistic and inclusive approaches to her practice.
Huidhonger started as a research project and was developed as the master thesis of Lola Ilegems. Together with Kika, interviews and contact improvisation sessions were organized to explore how wearable technology can be used to redesign touch, in collaboration with Julia and Frank Dierens, Björn Vervecken, Sigrid Vinks, Jan Decorte and Julia Kosalka.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUJP5Lr2me4&list=PLQ-lk8YRV70Vs43zcL03PqDHs1YQzXC1l
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjbVNUv2oaY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbsGTEi10iM
https://vimeo.com/1157290041?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci
At Fade Into You, we presented a contact improvisation duet between Bjorn and Kika, exploring touch with people who experience limited physical contact in daily life. Björn was also part of the Research process of Huidhonger.