Rosa Weinberg

Photo Credit: Olivia Moon @ Art Assembled

Hyphae is an interactive performance inspired by the behavior of mushrooms that brings together choreographer Emily Beattie, poet U-Meleni Mhabla-Adebo, and designer Rosa Weinberg into collaboration with their audience to create a single networked organism. Hyphae is funded in part by the Boston Foundation’s 2021 Live Arts Boston Grant.

In September 2021, we invited an intimate audience to enter our world for our Avant Premiere consisting of a series of prototypes in a theatrical frame. We shared speaking, moving, and built a table for feasting together.

I was the designer for this in-process project with choreographer and dancer Ilya Vidrin of the Partnering Lab, Peter Martel (lead electric engineer), Eugene Zeleny (lead engineer), and Voxel8. I reimagined the pressure sensor glove, taking advantage of the affordances of Voxel8’s polyurethane 3D printer; instead of thinking about this project as a glove, I wondered how to most minimally attach pressure sensors to the hand. Voxel8 has been focused on combining 3D printing and fabric but I wondered if the polyurethane could become a textile by itself.

Out of sticks.

This dress was commissioned for the Shimmer fundraiser at the BCA. Inspired by Paris Hilton’s 21st birthday dress and custom-made for Joy Davis of the Davis sisters, the dress held onto to Joy at the shoulders and had a completely open back. This dress uses a device called the “Classp” which I invented at an artist residency at Fab Lab Barcelona. The Classp is embedded in spandex and uses the stretch of the fabric to provide a spring mechanism. The Classp held up throughout the night, holding on to Joy with a loving but firm hold through trampoline jumps and the dance floor. The Classp for this dress was water jet out of aluminum and embedded in sparkly spandex. Thank you to the BCA, Ethan Vogt, Joy Davis, and photographers Tobi Makinde, William Dailey, and OJ Slaughter.

FAQ:

Is there a spring in the Classp? No, the stretch of the spandex provides the necessary spring to hold on tight but not too tight.

Does the aluminum touch the body? No, silicone “fingers” cast in 3D printed resin holders press against the skin.

This dress was designed and fabricated for my cousin, Anna, for a fundraiser at the Boston Center for the Arts. The theme of the party was delight. I interviewed Anna about the aspects in her life that caused her to feel the most delight, choosing one as the conceptual driver for the sculptural element. In the fabrication of this project, I developed a novel way to create a secure, yet flexible, attachment to her body.

Photos by OJ Slaughter and Ally Schmaling

The Nasturtium Dress was one of the five winners of an Instagram competition by Erin Robertson, Season 15 winner of Project Runway. This dress uses “Classp”, the mechanism I developed at Fab Lab Barcelona in 2018. Using the Class one can design a dress with an entirely open back. The mechanism, which takes advantage of the spring action of the stretchy spandex fabric it is embedded into, clamps onto the body at the waist and shoulder. As a winner of the competition, I was given the opportunity for the dress to walk in a fashion show and be part of a fashion shoot at an event at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in March of 2019.

Huge thanks to:
Photography — Ally Schmaling
Styling and Shoes — Erin Robertson @an_erin
Muse — Priscilla @iampris
Makeup — Michaela Bosch @michaelabosch
Hair — Patty Scheidel

With my collaborator Laura Zittrain, we participated in a 2 day hackathon at the Fablab in Berlin. We were awarded 2nd place, see here. 

Click here for a how to guide on how to make your own.

The feeling of cosmic-insignificance can be insurmountable. But this suit was made to help. A combination of a stethoscope and a spacesuit, the Stethosuit is a wearable sound device. The bodice serves as a sonic portal joining the inner universe of our bodies to the outer universe of the stars.The aural landscape of our bodies, the gurgles, bleeps and bloops, are eerily similar to the gurgles, bleeps and bloops of space. When these are heard together, it’s hard to distinguish which noises are coming from our bodies, and which are coming from space: hence, an experience of oneness with the universe.

The design takes its cues from nature and film: the oval shape echoes the elliptical orbits of comets through space, and the off-white, eggshell form and color references Frederick Fox’s iconic headwear from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Stethosuit is comprised of a bodice of seven stethoscopes which transmit sound into the right ear, while pre-recorded transmuted sounds from space play on a loop in the left ear. The stethoscopes and exoskeleton are 3D printed and fitted into lasercut 4mm laminated plywood pods. Future prototypes will include a dual-listening functionality, allowing two people the option of including the sounds of their partner’s bodies. The Stethosuit is a rethinking of a meditation device or sleep aid, encouraging users to activate an inner sense of calm and focus.

Digital Polished is a series of semi-functional tools mounted onto the fingernail; from a flail, to a fidget spinner, to a light sabre. The idea originated out of the anecdotal observation that more feminine women are seen as less technical than their peers. I chose to use the medium of nail polish and nail art, an aspect of adornment that is seen as exclusively feminine, to playfully highlight this implicit bias. Digital Polished began during an artist residency at the Techlab at Pioneer Works in 2017. I started with the antlers, moved to a "digit" spinner, a flail, a guitar pick, chopsticks, an "always" pencil and finally a weight. 

Follow this project at: www.instagram.com/digitalpolished

This sculptural wearable, inspired by a conversation with Heidi Latksy about the expansion of ribs during deep breathing, was begun during a residency at Pioneer Works Tech Lab in June of 2017. This third iteration was created for a performance at the Whitney Museum of Art which commemorated the 27th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

This dress was designed and fabricated during an artist residency at Nervous System in Palenville, New York in March 2020. This dress explores an alternate way for clothing to be worn using a device I invented called the “Classp” which I developed during an artist residency at Fab Lab Barcelona. For this dress, one Classp comes from the front and one from the back forming a double-helix esque shape. Unlike previous iterations, the Classp is more integrated into the garment and has a more sculptural form. This dress places the Classp between the lining of the dress — a layer of spandex — and the exterior fabric — a pleated sheer layer. You can read a blog post about my residency at Nervous System here.

Photos by Jessica Rosenkrantz and myself

From the Futures held a Zoom event at the end of August 2020 featuring ten, 15 minute, performances. These images represent the results of a workshop called “Office Kitch”. In 2025, Zoom Fatigue, the largest comorbidity of Covid-22, can best be treated by doing an activity while on a Zoom call. To enable this hands-free multitasking, participants made wearable phone holders out of office and kitchen supplies.

As part of Somerville Open Studios, I participated in a fashion show at the Armory in Somerville where I showed 5 costumes: Disco Ball, Bird, Car Wash, Reverse Mermaid and Mummy.

Thank you to my beautiful models, Mina, Morgan, Mary, Danielle and Sophia!

Material: Clear Resin
Fabrication technique: 3D printed on a Form2
Modeling software: Autodesk Fusion 360
Collaboration with Heidi Latsky Dance and the Boston Architectural College
Description: shoulder-mounted phone holder which adjusts in three+ axes.

New York City-based Heidi Latsky Dance honors International Day of Persons with Disabilities with yearly performances of ON DISPLAY GLOBAL located in more than thirty countries. For the past three years — the first two with Hortense Gerardo and this year with Jeremy Alliger — I have co-organized one performance at the gallery at Boston Architectural College on Newbury Street. During Covid the performance was done over a 24 hour period using Zoom. Our afternoon slot featured two dancers in the gallery and one at home, with many other performers and audience members tuning in. At the BAC we used projection and cameras to capture the experience. I created a wearable phone holder for each dancer as a way of capturing the intimacy and vulnerability that is typically associated with ON DISPLAY in non-Covid times when the audience can get close to the dancers.

The phone holder was mentioned in an article in Fjord Review. The entire performance was covered by the New York Times.

Many thanks to:

Amaly at Formlabs for facilitating the final print of these devices.

Joe for printing one.

Eric at the Burlington Generator for printing a prototype.

Charlotte, Jeremy, and Que for your beautiful performances and for being good sports about wearing the phone holders.

Karen, Patti, and Greg at the BAC for your help in making this happen!

This project was designed and fabricated for Bess Paupek of the dance and performance group, Excavate. I was inspired by conversations I had with Bess about the concepts behind their performance; Lizzie deCordova, one half of the deCordova’s, founders of the deCordova Museum in Concord, is a forgotten part of the Museum’s history. Her letters remain unscanned and little is known about her. Excavate was interested in bringing her back to life through Bess’s performance. Lizzie’s emergence from the earth was a key part of the performance, and so at Bess’s request, I created deep pockets in the dress to store dirt, and arm sculptures that held dirt. The arm sculptures are fabricated from laser cut acrylic with silver spray painted 3D printed connectors. The form of the dress came from of photo of Lizzie deCordova’s wedding dress, one of the few photographs of Lizzie available to the public.

“Classp” is a continuing project begun at the Textile Lab at Fab Lab Barcelona. Clothing is passive—it drapes, it is hung from the body. What would it mean if it grabbed on? This project integrates 4 bar linkages as a mechanism into the spandex forming a symbiotic relationship; the spandex, two rectangular half yards, require the mechanism to stay on the body, and the mechanisms require the spandex to actuate. Like a spring clamp, the fabric creates the tension which allows the dress to grab on to the shoulders and waist.

Cyborg Dreamcatcher is a collaboration with multi-media artist Christina Balch. More to come…

This dress was a collaboration with animator Maya Erdelyi for the launch party for the Boston Art Review which featured her work.

Future site: Ink Block Sculpture Park

We Won't Float is an installation about sea level rise. In collaboration with YouthBuild Boston’s Designery, I served as artist and fabricator to teach a studio of high school students from Boston Public Schools about public art, mold-making, casting and mapping. Concrete ducks cast in a reusable mold made from a pool floatation device are to be placed around Boston. They will playfully and soberly mark locations that are predicted to experience flooding due to sea level rise and storm surges. Like a concrete floatation device, our cities are currently not set up to protect us from rising waters. 

I could not have done this project without the help of the wonderful high school students at the Designery, Allison Deninsky, a fantastic Northeastern architecture undergraduate on her Co-op at the Designery and Natalie Zanecchia, a gifted graphic designer and friend.

In response to a call for artists for Common Boston Week, Natalie Zanecchia, Kathi Bahr and I created 13 sets of the letters spelling "Hi" as a way of both welcoming people to the South End and demarcating its neighborhood boundary.

The Hi installation was featured in Architecture Boston's Fall 2012 issue and in the SHIFTbostonblog.

Piñatas are a rare pleasure. They allow people to interact with, and eventually destroy works of art. These are made from paper mâche, and meticulously assembled with feathers, and sometimes felt or paper.  

My piñatas were featured in an article about innovation in Somerville in the Boston Globe.

Instagram: ThePinataClub

3471 Dots

In this installation, shown originally at Mass Art for the dParty (the launch event for Common Boston week) thousands of 3-inch diameter dots are hand sewn together to form a five foot by ten foot topographical floor covering designed using Python scripting in the computer modeling program Rhinoceros.

This installation was made possible through a generous donation of 10mm thick felt circles fromFilzFelt, a Boston-based company, founded by designers Kelly Smith and Traci Roloff, that imports and distributes 100% wool German design felt.

The concept was inspired by both the main installation at the dParty, a topographical book display by Mary Hale, and the phrase "Live and Learn", the theme of Common Boston week 2011. The topography of "3471 Dots" represents a square section of a page of the MCAS 2010 written exam - removed from its context, the text is meaningless.

3471 Dots was featured in the SHIFTboston blog.

DIGITAL HUMANITIES BETWEEN, the successor to 3471 dots, was exhibited at metaLAB as part of openlab_02.

For this installation, thousands of 3-inch diameter dots are hand sewn together to form a five foot by ten foot topographical floor covering designed using Python scripting in the computer modeling program Rhinoceros. For the party celebrating the opening of the month-long installation, I wrote an interactive program that allowed gallery visitors to create unique virtual sculptures of their own by inputting words on a computer. Rhinoceros used these words to build the virtual model, which was projected on a nearby wall.

The text for the sculpture itself, "DIGITAL HUMANITIES BETWEEN", was inspired by conversations with members of metaLAB about their research. Derived from the topography of a swelling surface, the form expresses the concept of deformation as a way of magnifying the encoded information; the dot font is present throughout the mat, however the text can only be read where the dots are aggregated vertically.

This installation was made possible through a generous donation of 10mm thick felt circles from FilzFelt, a Boston-based company, founded by designers Kelly Smith and Traci Roloff, that imports and distributes 100% wool German design felt.

Thank you Kathi Bahr for these beautiful photographs!

After giving up my crutches, and my knee brace, I was worried people would run into me. Thank you Regine for being my knee model.

This concrete sign was commissioned by Marty Walsh of Geekhouse bikes for HeadQuarters, a co-working space in the Innovation District. The mold was CNCed out of rigid foam insulation and cast in my studio space at Artisan's Asylum. It was then bolted to blocking before the wall's backside was sheathed with gypsum board.

The following bags were designed and produced while I lived in New York. I focused on simplicity of design and production, and beauty in the exterior and interior fabrics. Because I concentrate on economy of materials, the shapes that result are rectangular or triangular.

Sophia Gruzdys's course, Drawing and Architectural Form at Yale

The drawing of the five-sided pentagon challenged me to find the mathematical proof of its geometric construction. Unlike a hexagon or a square, the construction of a pentagon with a compass requires a number of steps that do not intuitively lead to its formation. After I found the proof, my interest in the pentagon extended to the regular dodecahedron - a 12 sided platonic solid composed of pentagons. For our final project, Trisha Snyder and I applied tape to the walls surrounding the Art and Architecture pit depicting dodecahedrons which could only be seen when viewed in a mirror from a specific angle.

Alec Purves and Stephen Harby's Drawing Course: Rome, Continuity and Change

I was interested in exploring the extent to which a lined ink drawing could capture more than just the outlines of objects. I chose the Centrale Montemartini because of the possibilities afforded to me by the stark contrast between the white marble sculptures of the collection and their backdrop -- the restored machinery of the former occupant of the factory, the Giovannni Montemartini Thermoelectric Centre. This was a perfect context within which to represent the materiality of the white marble and the black machinery in a line drawing.