[-empyre-] introduction

[Kettley, Sarah]

Hallo,

By way of introduction I’d like to propose two more topics for discussion in relation to wearable technology - methodology and distribution.

First, the broad motivation for most of my work is methodological. I am interested in the working philosophies this field inherits from others and how they become incorporated into a landscape of production, practice and literature. In particular I am interested in the challenges posed by a focus on outcomes, which so explicitly need to take into account the social control of expression and function (or functionality). New forms of practice, whether production or consumption, give us the opportunity to reflect on existing praxis, which is often so familiar as to be invisible – in particular I look at forms of craft knowledge through the collaborative development of digital jewellery and reactive textiles on the body. This doesn’t just tell us about endangered practices, although there may be a case for that, rather I am interested in the unusual opportunity to consciously outline and develop a fundamental working philosophy:

‘developing design activity must, first and foremost, be grounded in a firm understanding of what we as individuals have already mastered and what we need to improve’ (Lowgren & Stolterman in Thoughtful Interaction Design 2004)

At the moment I am looking at the Aristotelian concept of phronesis in this respect – a view of intellectual virtue attuned to situational complexities, going beyond both analytical, scientific knowledge and technical knowledge or know-how. In other words, in being forced to work beyond the dichotomy of ‘not only function but also design’ (Latour 2008), the emerging field of wearable technology has the opportunity to be utterly mindful.

In terms of craft, one of my main proposals is that we work from the material to the concept (or function) – and here material can mean cloth, circuitry, or people. In this way, wearable technology and systems might become grounded in patterns of the everyday instead of being characterised as gadgetry.


Secondly, I’m interested in the distributed nature of wearable systems at all levels. This emerged from working with a distributed platform in my first project, the Friendship Jewellery, in which this key characteristic of the technology informed the design of a suite of networked jewellery for five female friends. I found that I had to design a distributed object (a collection of objects) for a distributed user (the friendship group), and that therefore I was looking at distributed user experience. This challenged the more normal associations of jewellery with the intimate too – work in this area often looks at the relationship between one owner or wearer and one object through for example memory or significance, but this made me consider jewellery as a socially active system.

I look forward to your thoughts on any of this,
Sarah

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