Margarita Benitez is the Fashion Technologist and an Assistant Professor in Fashion Design Design at The Fashion School at Kent State University and a NE Ohio based multimedia artist experimenting in wearable sensory experiences combining sound, material explorations and interactivity. She holds a Masters of Fine Art degree in Art + Technology Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (thanks to a Trustee Scholarship).

Her current research explores 3D printing and transformation of the human form through concepts of biomimicry, interactive sound and visual installations, open source tools for artists and material explorations.

Together with artist Markus Vogl, her collaborative work under the name //benitez_vogl has been showcased on 4 continents. Exhibitions have included Art Basel Miami, G2 Gallery Chicago, Eyebeam New York, Collider, museumsquartier Vienna, Austria, Academy of Visual Arts, Hongkong, Beijing Fashion Institute, Beijing, China and at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Her collaborative research has been presented at Shapeshifting in Auckland, New Zealand, the BIFT/ITAA Symposium in Beijing, Digital Fashion, London, South by SouthWest, SIGGRAPH and at the New Media Art Caucus Artist showcases during the Annual College Art Association Conference.

In 2012, //benitez_vogl received a NEA Media in Arts Grant for S.A.R.A.: Synesthetic Augmented Reality Application, an open source wearable synesthetic App. S.A.R.A. received the ‘aesthetic design’ jury award at the 2014 International Symposium on Wearable Computing’s Design Exhibition at Seattle’s EMP.

Biography Key Points

• born in Salzburg, Austria


• 25 years of experience


• work presented on 5 continents