The American singer Lady Gaga wore a mask with an oscilloscope created by the company Smooth Technology, on Sunday, during her performance at the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards, with Ariana Grande.

By Ludmilla Intravaia

She’s one of the few to have worn a mask to sing. And what a mask! Lady Gaga appeared on the stage of the 2020 MTV Video Music Awards, in New York, yesterday, with a luminous mask, sensitive to the sound of her voice. Equipped with an oscilloscope, an electronic measuring instrument intended to visualize an electrical signal, the mask displayed an oscillogram, whose curve evolved, according to her musical performance, a medley of her last album Chromatica, including the titles "Enigma" , "Chromatica II", "911", "Rain on Me" and "Stupid Love".

UPDATE – The company Smooth Technology, in charge of the project, explains today, September first, on its Instagram account, how the mask works : “Lady Gaga controlled the animations with her loudness and pitch captured from a built in mic. The lighting designer had wireless control over the color of the animation.”

The engineering firm Smooth Technology made Janelle Monáe’s “blinking eye” of the MET Gala 2019, a dress which neckline showed a mobile eye, blinking in a random sequence (read here). It was also Smooth Technology that designed the sliding fringes of Billy Porter’s fashion tech hat for his appearance at the Grammy Awards red carpet, on January 26th, 2020 (read here). Watch Lady Gaga, along with Ariana Grande, in the video below.

UPDATE – Also note that the fashion tech designer Asher Levine created an illuminated Meta Dragon mask for this Lady Gaga performance.

Watch the drummer Chris Johnson with the mask below.

The guitarist Tim Stewart sports it, likewise, below.

* Continue reading about Lady Gaga and fashion tech with these Boudoir Numérique papers:

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* Continue reading about the creations of Smooth Technology in the Boudoir Numérique papers below : 

 - Billy Porter’s motorized hat : how does it work ?

- Fashion tech at Met Gala 2019