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

[danielle wilde]

I thought I should add, speculative design also provides a rich context for
the imagining and sometimes subsequent development of body-worn
technologies. I think, in particular, of some of the subtly visceral
opportunities for engagement provided by
auger-loizeau<http://www.auger-loizeau.com/>,
in particular the isophone <http://www.auger-loizeau.com/index.php?id=2>, the
artificial horizon helmet and
earlids<http://www.auger-loizeau.com/index.php?id=3> which,
since their development, have been reframed as "analogue representations of
potential digital future enhancements. [that] offer the wearer an
opportunity to experience the benefits of upgrading the body through
electronic implants before actually going through with the necessary
invasive surgery." and smell+ <http://www.auger-loizeau.com/index.php?id=12>




On 27 May 2011 09:39, danielle wilde <d at daniellewilde.com> wrote:

> Much work in the areas of wearable technology has nothing to do with
> fashion, as the commercial drivers and imperatives don't seem to allow for
> anything terribly interesting in this space (as Van Dyke rather starkly
> points out). I do not believe that this renders the space uninteresting.
> Rather it opens up fertile ground for research - why pair technologies with
> the body at all? what are the perceived benefits? How does it enhance life
> and society in ways that are exciting and useful (without necessarily
> meaning utilitarian) - how can body-worn technologies possibly contribute to
> the kinds of futures we dream of? (rather than simply helping us to iterate
> on the paradigms we currently operate in, with their known drawbacks and
> limitations). How can they help us to dream?
>
> Wearable technology research often has little relation to fashion discourse
> (though this does not deny the validity and importance of fashion-related
> research). Applications of outcomes are varied, as shown by some of the
> examples cited throughout the month. Michèle raised some interesting medical
> applications. Melinda just raised some additional examples in the realm of
> art. My own approach (crossing a range of contexts) is to examine directly
> how body-worn technologies might bring us back into contact with our most
> visceral freedoms. Thinking about this can result in "exercise" technologies
> such as the wiii etc. (which are not body-worn), but may also lead to more
> fundamentally interesting spaces. My experiments in this area have not
> always been successful. hipDisk<http://www.daniellewilde.com/dw/hipdisk.html> is
> a radical exception - it was a very quick experiment that continues to
> incite interest from a broad cross-section of society. (it's the work around
> which my other experiments continue to circulate). It has applications as a
> performance "tool", but also as a learning "tool" in a number of different
> contexts.
>
> If we step beyond specific examples and discipline or body-specific
> applications (or objections), I find it interesting to consider how thinking
> about body-worn technologies might help us to dream the future of the
> body-worn in relation to the evolving technium (Kelly, 2010). People seem
> quite attached to pairing technologies with the body. Despite relatively
> little advance over the years artists, scientists and other researchers
> rather stubbornly continue to push in this area. Arthur C. Clarke posits
> that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
> (Clarke, 1984). I am interested in trying to address how we might support
> the conception, development and evaluation of such 'magical' advanced
> technologies - technologies that we can't quite imagine. I want to work out
> how to leap beyond the adjacent possible, to move beyond constraints related
> to technological limitations and commercial imperatives. My collaboration
> with Kristina Andersen, the OWL project<http://www.daniellewilde.com/dw/OWL.html>,
> is directly concerned with these questions. Our approach mixes up art,
> ethnography and magic.It is too early for us to draw conclusions about
> whether or not we are creating a process for the emergence of 'sufficiently
> advanced technology', but there are clear indications that we have created a
> system for engaging users in strongly engaged moments of co-creation and
> collaborative imagining of that which does not yet exist, filling the void
> of their functionality with magic. (Wilde, Andersen, 2009 and 2010)
>
> Condemning body-worn technologies because of their sluggish development, or
> presumed alignment with fashion misses an opportunity to consider why people
> continue to work in this area (considering the slow advances) and dream in
> this area (as evidenced by aspects of this conversation as well as many
> works, particularly in art contexts), as well as where this area might go
> that is of real interest (in many contexts, including fashion - we all wear
> clothes, and fashion research is no less valid than other research)
>
> regards
> danielle
>
> refs:
> Clarke, Arthur C. *Profiles of the Future*. New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart &
> Winston, 1984
> Kelly, Kevin. *What Technology Wants*. New York: Viking (Penguin Group),
> 2010
> Wilde, D., Anderson, K. . "Doing Things Backwards: Theowlproject." In *The
> Australasian Computer Human Interaction Conference (OZCHI09)*, 357-360.
> Melbourne, Australia: ACM Press, 2009.
> Wilde, D., Andersen, K. . "Part Science Part Science Part Magic: Analysing
> the Owl Outcomes." In *OZCHI10*, 188-191. Brisbane, Australia: ACM Press.,
> 2010.
>
>
>
>
> On 25 May 2011 10:23, vandyk vandyk <vandykv at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> empyre forum
>>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> empyre forum
>> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
>> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>>
>
>
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