[-empyre-] Wearable Technologies and dresses/bodies in flux

[vandyk vandyk]

The discussion is missing the simple fact that the 'greater public' are not
fooled by these bits of technology that have the potential to overtake the
body and affect a colonization that would negatively affect their most
visceral freedoms. So it is not fine that YOU wax lyrically or not about the
associative or interpretative nature of technology on fashion. The fact is
that fashion does not need such diversions, fashion is best left to consider
the tropes that tie it to tradition, and perhaps deceiving what good fashion
might do for humankind. Technology applied to a garment does nothing except
turn the garment into technology, in turn these items become functional
clothing, and are not fashion, unless they are deemed so by the greater
public.

Van Dyk

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 3:41 PM, Johannes Birringer <
Johannes.Birringer at brunel.ac.uk> wrote:

> dear all
>
> these last few postings opened up the discussion even more, thanks to you
> all,
> starting with Michèle's  comments on neurological wiring and the relational
> exchanges
> or interactions between organisms and environment, followed by the
> subsequent
> elaborations by Susan Ryan on the subject of wearable technology and social
> dimensions,
> and by Sarah Kettley on what is worn and made visible (to whom) and what is
> not made
> visible  - in the latter case I was not entirely sure i understood what you
> were
> driving at (but you mentioned some research projects that i would have to
> look up
> and there was no time yet) ---   were you suggesting there is a difference
> between
> sharing and transmitting, and how does this concern the wearable or the
> wearer
> or relational/interactional social effect? it won't concern the "wearable"
>  -  and here
> i found indeed quite interesting all the cases that Susan mentioned of
> newly developed
> applications in the fashion or fashion/sports industry that have not really
> caught on
> or did not seem to interest people that much..
>
> >>
> there is still little interest on the part of a significant public in
> exploring wearable technology
> in the way they actually dress. I wonder about this. Why is wearable
> technology such an exclusive field?
>  Perhaps most people have chosen to simply carry a single node—their mobile
> phone/personality central.
> When we are using our phones, I wonder, do we think we are invisible?
> >>
>
>
> the reference to Susan Kozel's work on mobile phones and social behavior
> made sense (here
> indeed Erving Goffman's social anthropology is marvelous, I mention his
> writings on
> "interaction rituals" a lot when we are building interactive environments
> that
> invite audience to participate gesturally or movement wise with "digital
> objects"
> or real objects that are connected into a computational interface scene -
> and ultimately
> the participants in installations, as in other places and occasions that
> are
> linked to social ritual action, also always participate with each other, if
> there is more than one)
>
>  Kozel is very keen on developing the notion of social choreography;
> I recently heard her speak at a dance tech
> workshop on technologies/social circulations at MIT (April 2011:
> http://web.mit.edu/slippage/dancetech/),
> where she descrribed a new project she is developing in Sweden, called
> "IntuiTweet", and it is an experiment with social networking
> applications in improvised performance and communication (
> http://medea.mah.se/2010/10/intuitweet/).
> She does work with mobile phones and twitter messaging (stimulating
> respondents to embody/enact a certain movement
> or gesture or behave /respond a certain way and pass on to an other......);
> as I have also noticed more and more how these accessoires have affected
> people's way of moving
> and being in the world;  just an hour ago I crossed a rather ugly parking
> lot near our science park, lost in thought;
> and a young man walks towards me, and I note his warm, deeply loving smile,
> as he moves his lips
> and looks at me, and  I'm about to embrace him though I don't know him; and
> then I realize he is talking to his lover, a string coming out of his ear,
> his phone was
> invisible, in some pocket, as he carried some books in his hands and under
> the arm.  I try to feel embarrassed but actually don't, I just walk on and
> marvel,
> feeling happy for him.
>
> Not sure, though, whether the transmission devices are also 'statements' ,
> and whether
> the roles of the accessory change (>> the accessory has moved to become the
> key garment
> instead of the peripheral object>>)
>
> I suppose what you were arguing affects understandings of "dressing" or
> dress and the functions
> clothes [or accessories] have in the social realms and milieus, and the
> issue of "control" over functions and visibility, indeed,
> seems of considerable interest;  aesthetic performance (spectacle or less)
> has other concerns here,
> possibly, yet I was intrigued  by Susan's comments on fashion and
> anti-fashion
> and on:
>
> >>
> and how we use garments to navigate a public domain and communicate a lot
> more than just our personalities.
> Dress may be one of the few creative things we all do on a daily basis,
> although its level of creativity is sometimes overlooked
> >>
>
>
> might you expand on this, and look at what creative ranges are used, in
> your opinion (or deliberately crossed out or
> abused/non-used)? and how you see the issue of "control" of wearable
> image/identity/effect on others/affect?
> (Erin Manning in her Senselab in  Montréal held a lovely workshop a few
> years ago, i think it was called "TRANS-GENÈSE : CORPS-MILIEU"
> // HOUSING THE BODY, DRESSING THE ENVIRONMENT......, and they used the verb
> 'emanate" in their announcements:
> “what emanates from the body and what emanates from the architectural
> surround intermixes” [Arakawa&Gins],
> but what exactly are these emanations, how do you describe them, in
> psychological/emotional terms, or in economic terms
> or in terms of social relations that are virtually/tenuously or more
> deliberately and even profoundly stitched and cross-patched?
>
>  Is this discussed [and by whom?, I don't see much debate in fashion
> theory, nor in dance or performance studies
> of the new media arts contexts?) in terms of gender, age?  social class and
> tribe, in terms of race? and regarding sexually
> explicit or implicit styles , deviancy, perversion?  the body in flux
> (wondersome recent conference at Southampton:
> http://www.solent.ac.uk/news/2011/thebodyinflux.aspx)?
> the goth body?  and how mass media play across these categories now or how
> fashion/advertising/entertainment
> in the late age of perverse capitalism is a rather chaotic mess, no?
>
>
> regards
>
> Johannes Birringer
> dap-lab
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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