[-empyre-] Week 4 of empyre: Wearable Technologies Welcome Danielle Wilde, Sarah Kettley and Lucy Dunne

[Lucy Dunne]

Hello all,

Thanks for the introduction. I have also been following the discussion this
month, and am interested to jump in and discuss more fully with all of you.

Much of the discussion so far has related to the performative aspects of
wearable technology. Certainly in application to expressive functions,
"performance" is somewhat inherent to visual communication (if I am
interpreting correctly). My research in wearable technologies spans from
expressive, performative applications to more functional, practical
applications. Sometimes these use the same underlying technologies (i.e.,
detecting physiological signals in order to express mood, or using those
same signals to assess or monitor medical conditions.) The question of the
application being "inward-facing" or "outward-facing" is interesting to me,
and I think has strong implications for what wearable technology means to
the world and how it is perceived.

The performative aspect also relates to the pervasive questions of security
and privacy that are so common in discussions of wearables -- both in terms
of the more obvious questions of control of personal data, as well as the
more subtle questions of control of inner state, emotion, and expression. A
project I worked on a number of years ago asked these questions about
visibility and expression in wearable technology: for instance, if a garment
is capable of displaying "raw" emotion (in terms of physiological signals
that we generally assume are not consciously controlled), what does that
mean for the individual wearing it, as well as the "spectator" or
"audience"? What does it mean if we can't cover or filter our emotions? Or,
would the very visible nature of the signal then result in biofeedback-type
self-training, where the individual learns to "lie" by moderating his/her
heart rate or galvanic skin response?

--Lucy



On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 12:51 PM, Renate Ferro <rtf9 at cornell.edu> wrote:

> It has been quiet this week on empyre and I'm hoping that most of you have
> turned in your grades and finished your semester on this half of the
> hemisphere at last.  I've been traveling the past few days so I'm a day
> later in making introductions. I'm hoping that we can end this week and this
> month's discussion assimilating some of month's threads and introducing new
> ones.  In my travels I was thinking about the past few week's discussions
> and my own physicality in relationship to technology and personal/public
> space. I wear my DROID.  It is in my pocket or my hand or my satchel at all
> times "attached." In fact this morning as I went to take my walk I slipped
> my DROID in the front zippered pocket of a rain jacket and then when it got
> warm just took the jacket off and wrapped the arms around my shoulders.   My
> smart phone is a toggle to the networked world. Like Freud's nephew Hans and
> the management of his mother's absence or presence,  I manage my networks of
> friends and family, a virtual toggle.  For me wearable can be associative.
> Does technology have to be actually embedded into a garment or can it just
> be associatively connected.  Any thoughts about this?  Perhaps to extend
> this conversation and others from last week I'll introduce our last set of
> guests.  Welcome Daniel, Sarah, and Lucy. See their biographies below.
>
> Also I'm hoping that our former guests *Janis Jefferies* (UK), *Valérie
> Lamontagne*  (CA), *Ashley Ferro-Murray* (US), *Sabine Seymour* (US), *Susan
> Elizabeth Ryan* (US) and those of you who have been following will add to
> this weeks conversation on Wearable Technologies:  Cross-disciplinary
> Ventures.
>
>
> Week of May 24th
>
>
>
> *Danielle Wilde* (AU/FR) thinks, writes, moves and makes to understand how
> technology might be paired with the body to poeticise
> experience. Her research sits at the nexus of performance, fine art, costume
> design, critical (technology) and interaction design. She has a particular
> interest in the democratizing value of clumsiness. In 2010 she was visiting
> research scholar at Tokyo University's Ishikawa Komuro Laboratory. In 2011
> she will complete a PhD titled Swing That Thing: Moving to Move, on the
> poetics of embodied interaction. She is currently based in Melbourne, at
> Monash University (Fine Art) and CSIRO (Materials Sciences and Engineering).
> www.daniellewilde.com
>
>
>
> *Sarah Kettley (UK) *is a Senior Lecturer in Product Design at Nottingham
> Trent University, and works with product designers and textile artists to
> investigate creative processes of engagement with smart materials. She is a
> contemporary jeweler with a PhD in Craft as a methodology for the
> development of Wearable technology and conducts research in craft and design
> theory, embodied interaction, physical computing, and the issues involved in
> supporting interdisciplinary creative practice.**
>
>
>
> *Lucy Dunne* (*US)*  is an Assistant Professor in the department of
> Design, Housing and Apparel at the University of Minnesota. She holds B.S.
> and M.A. degrees from Cornell University in Apparel Design, and a PhD in
> Computer Science from University College Dublin. Her research focuses on
> wearable technology and smart clothing, and lies at the intersection of
> electronic technology and apparel design. Current areas of focus include
> navigating the comfort/accuracy tradeoff in garment-integrated body sensing,
> novel sensor- and actuator-based interfaces, new media in fashion design,
> and wardrobe management through ubiquitous computing.
>
> --
>
> Renate Ferro
> Visiting Assistant Professor of Art
> Cornell University
> Department of Art, Tjaden Hall Office #420
> Ithaca, NY  14853
> Email:   <rtf9 at cornell.edu>
> URL:  http://www.renateferro.net
>       http://www.privatesecretspubliclies.net
> Lab:  http://www.tinkerfactory.net
>
> Managing Co-moderator of -empyre- soft skinned space
> http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empyre
>
> Art Editor, diacritics
> http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/dia/
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> empyre forum
> empyre at lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
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