Fashion designer Ying Gao has made a pair of dresses which move around and light up when someone looks at them. The designer used an eye-trackings system to accomplish this.

This system responds to the observer’s gaze by activating tiny motor which move parts of the dresses in astonishing patterns. One of the dresses is covered in photo-luminescent thread which dangle from ruches, while the other has glow-in-the-dark threads in combination with ribbons.

In the dark, these dresses look like glowing sea creatures. The project is called ‘(no)where now(here)’ and explores the idea of absence, as the dresses only move when someone is watching. The dresses will be exhibited at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art in November and at the Textile Museum of Canada in Spring 2014.

Previously, Ying Gao had already designed dresses which curl and unroll in reaction to light, as well as garments which move as if they are breathing: