but ill send you an updated word doc in a sec...
Adding depth rather than surface.
We would like to propose that the litteral layers and folds of the fabric around us can act as both symbols of and possibilities for complex and layered interpretations and surprises in the way that we intepret our own experiences and the external and outside world, allowing our clothes to both protect and expose us.
The body mediates between our internal and external experiences and our clothes and worn objects are part of that mediation.
The Experience of Enchantment in Human-Computer Interaction
John McCarthy, University College Cork, Ireland; Peter Wright, University of York, UK; Jayne Wallace, Andrew Dearden, Sheffield Hallam University, UK
www.shu.ac.uk/schools/cs/cri/adrc/research2/enchantment.pdf
www.springerlink.com/index/71L638452287980K.pdf
“Enchantment does not necessarily imply that the object of enchantment must be novel or extraordinary, rather that the person sees how rich and extraordinary the everyday and familiar can be. In the prosaic world in which we live, all encounters contain the possibility of something unexpected.”
McCarthy et all describes the following “sensibilities” as concerns for allowing enchantment in technological objects:
- The specific sensuousness of each particular thing, appearance, texture,
sound, etc.
- Recognising and addressing the whole person with desires, feelings, and anxieties.
- Affording a sense of being-in-play.
- Engaging paradox, openness, and ambiguity.
- Allowing for the transformational character of experience.
Bennett, J.. The Enchantment of Modern Life:
Attachments, Crossings, and Ethics. (2001) Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Bennett describes as the experience of enchantment as being “both caught up and carried away”
Fortunati, L. Italy: Stereotypes, true and false. In Katz, J.E. and Aakhus, M. (eds). Perpetual Contact: Mobile Communication, Private Talk, Public Performance. (2002) Cambridge University Press. Chapter 4.
According to Fortunati the use of mobile devices like the cell phone is part of an ongoing dissolution of the separation of intimacy and extraneousness, public and private space. We allow bubbles of intimacy to occour in the streets on the train, the urgency of an intimate communication overrides any concerns we might have for the space we are in or the people around us. The cell phone remains a symbol of our connectedness with our select community even when it is not used, indicating with its presence our availability to that community and their availability to us. As such the act of giving someone your cell phone number is a intimate act of inclusion and friendship.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
the personal vs the communal
According to Simmel, everything that ‘adorns’ can be ordered along a scale in terms o its closeness to the physical body, from tattoos to clothes to jewellery or gadgets. Steward describes the tattoo as adding additional surface to the body with its message of communally understood symbols fully incorporated into the body. Whereas the locket or closed object is an additional recess of the body always threatened by loss or exposure.
some notes
My clothes fade and wear with time and as such they are measuring devises of time. My pieces of technology become obsolete even faster. They too then measure time. I se a businessman on the plane with a nokia 7200 and I think - hmmm, state of the art 3 years ago, how are you doing lately? Did you become attached to it or did you not use it enough to wear it out, did you take too much care, not dropping it on the floor. The top of the range gadget, well worn and scratched is a sign of the nonchalance that comes with wealth and technological know how. The same is true for second hand, slightly trashed designer clothes. I see what you brought to the waiting room at gate 23 and I draw my conclusions. Your ensemble of outfit and devises tells me: sales person or innovator, artist or organiser, buyer or maker.
My favorite coat is falling apart at the seams. I cannot bring myself to throw it out. I cannot stop myself from wearing it. It was my mothers when she was very young and now it is mine. Its value increases with each experience it is part of. By now I have replaced every seam, the buttonholes are the next to be redone. When I find the right thread. I remember repairing it as a student, and here I am searching for the right colour thread again. each hour spent adds value, memories, thoughts and more importantly long lasting tangible aids for the memory.
Coffee stains and the smell of smoke are part of the fabric’s capacity for short-term memory. But what if it could do more? Rumble with feedback after the concert or whispering voices after a day spent in the library. The laundry basket as a murmur of barely audible sound, a fading snapshot of the kind of week we had?
My favorite coat is falling apart at the seams. I cannot bring myself to throw it out. I cannot stop myself from wearing it. It was my mothers when she was very young and now it is mine. Its value increases with each experience it is part of. By now I have replaced every seam, the buttonholes are the next to be redone. When I find the right thread. I remember repairing it as a student, and here I am searching for the right colour thread again. each hour spent adds value, memories, thoughts and more importantly long lasting tangible aids for the memory.
Coffee stains and the smell of smoke are part of the fabric’s capacity for short-term memory. But what if it could do more? Rumble with feedback after the concert or whispering voices after a day spent in the library. The laundry basket as a murmur of barely audible sound, a fading snapshot of the kind of week we had?
Friday, May 19, 2006
solely for your information: two extracts from old FARAWAY texts: 2
SYMBOLIC PRESENCE
Projects like ‘The Bed’ and ‘Lumitouch’ and partially also ‘Bench’ and ‘Sloganbenches’ play with the cultural connotations of certain objects in order to augment them with technology. These projects build on a mechanism that can be defined as ‘symbolic investment’: objects conventionally invested with either cultural existing meaning or personal new meaning, can act as vessels or vehicles for another person’s presence. Thanks to particular and diverse rules, specific items can become virtual ‘traces’ of something or someone that is not present, or not present anymore. In other words, these objects become symbolic surrogates of presence in time and space.
In the classic definition of Charles Sanders Pierce (1931-1958) a symbol is the kind of sign that has an arbitrary link with its object. In other words, a symbol stands for something else by virtue of a convention. The degree of conventionality of the link relating the object with its meaning is variable; it can be represented on a continuum going from the fully codified to the completely open.
A domain full of strongly codified objects is religion. The Eucharist is probably the most classic example of a symbol of presence with a strictly codified meaning. The New Testament gives a precise definition on what the Eucharist is:
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body." {27} Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. {28} This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."
(Matthew 26:26-28 NIV)
"And when he (Jesus) had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me."
(1Corinthians 11:24)
And Christian ceremonial provides us with strict rules and procedures concerning the context and the modalities for the host to acquire its symbolic power. The Eucharist has the same meaning and the same ‘mode of use’ for everybody. The choice is between believing and not believing.
The same kind of codified routines applies to other kinds of religious symbols of presence.
A voodoo doll consecrated and named after a person with an artefact of their body or writing will affect that person when a spell is induced. Money used and energized in a spell will bring more money to the person encapsulated in the voodoo doll, and so forth. Herbs, incense, and other components of a spell are also effective. They are different symbols that emphasize the desired outcome of the spell.
Most objects combine both cultural and personal meaning in varying proportions. In the case of symbols for love and friendship, the objects are partially culturally codified; however they are always embedded with strong personal and private meaning. Wedding Rings are usually symbols of marital agreement, fidelity, and love. The power of these objects can be very strong.
Let's take my wedding ring as a simple example. If I were to regard this object merely as a sign of my status as a married person, then the ring itself, as an object, would not be very important to me. [ ] However, because I regard my ring as a symbol of my commitment to love my wife as long as we are alive, the ring itself actually participates in my marriage. To lose it or even to decide not to wear it would be a tragedy, since part of my marriage would thereby be lost.
(Palmquist)
Different from the Eucharist, the wedding ring has more opportunity for personal investment, in the sense that there is not a fixed relation between the object and one unique entity. The sense of presence that the wedding ring conveys as well as the values associated with it changes based on the person.
Even though friendship bracelets and lockets have similar characteristics, they offer broader possibilities for meaning attribution. Although their function is conventional, these symbols can be both associated with za person as well as affording more freedom in terms of context.
Within the body is both the heart and the heart's content - the other ...The locket creates an additional secret recess of the body. Such recesses, which depend upon the protective functions of clothing, are always vulnerable to exposure.
(Stewart 1993)
At the extreme edge of the continuum there’s a variegated and infinite set of tokens with a functional or aesthetic value that can become personal objects of affection. Souvenirs are items taken from a given time and place symbolizing not only a point in time but often the person with whom the time was shared with. Thanks to our personal and idiosyncratic rules of ‘consecration’ they acquire the very special power of conveying a presence. Like imprints testify someone’s past presence by virtue of a physical sign, souvenirs suggest someone’s presence by virtue of an emotional association. Souvenirs come in many forms; some of them like photographs, postcards, etc. are more ‘classical’ and conventionally identified as such. However any kind of object can be included in this category, which is therefore the most open one.
The souvenir distinguishes experiences. The souvenir is not simply an object appearing out of context, an object from the past incongruosly surviving in the present; rather, its function is to envelop the present within the past. Souvenirs are magical objects because of this transformation.'
(Stewart 1993)
Understanding how the symbolic investment occurs and is shared over distance opens interesting possibilities to design tools that convey presence.
Projects like ‘The Bed’ and ‘Lumitouch’ and partially also ‘Bench’ and ‘Sloganbenches’ play with the cultural connotations of certain objects in order to augment them with technology. These projects build on a mechanism that can be defined as ‘symbolic investment’: objects conventionally invested with either cultural existing meaning or personal new meaning, can act as vessels or vehicles for another person’s presence. Thanks to particular and diverse rules, specific items can become virtual ‘traces’ of something or someone that is not present, or not present anymore. In other words, these objects become symbolic surrogates of presence in time and space.
In the classic definition of Charles Sanders Pierce (1931-1958) a symbol is the kind of sign that has an arbitrary link with its object. In other words, a symbol stands for something else by virtue of a convention. The degree of conventionality of the link relating the object with its meaning is variable; it can be represented on a continuum going from the fully codified to the completely open.
A domain full of strongly codified objects is religion. The Eucharist is probably the most classic example of a symbol of presence with a strictly codified meaning. The New Testament gives a precise definition on what the Eucharist is:
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body." {27} Then he took the cup, gave thanks and offered it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you. {28} This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."
(Matthew 26:26-28 NIV)
"And when he (Jesus) had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me."
(1Corinthians 11:24)
And Christian ceremonial provides us with strict rules and procedures concerning the context and the modalities for the host to acquire its symbolic power. The Eucharist has the same meaning and the same ‘mode of use’ for everybody. The choice is between believing and not believing.
The same kind of codified routines applies to other kinds of religious symbols of presence.
A voodoo doll consecrated and named after a person with an artefact of their body or writing will affect that person when a spell is induced. Money used and energized in a spell will bring more money to the person encapsulated in the voodoo doll, and so forth. Herbs, incense, and other components of a spell are also effective. They are different symbols that emphasize the desired outcome of the spell.
Most objects combine both cultural and personal meaning in varying proportions. In the case of symbols for love and friendship, the objects are partially culturally codified; however they are always embedded with strong personal and private meaning. Wedding Rings are usually symbols of marital agreement, fidelity, and love. The power of these objects can be very strong.
Let's take my wedding ring as a simple example. If I were to regard this object merely as a sign of my status as a married person, then the ring itself, as an object, would not be very important to me. [ ] However, because I regard my ring as a symbol of my commitment to love my wife as long as we are alive, the ring itself actually participates in my marriage. To lose it or even to decide not to wear it would be a tragedy, since part of my marriage would thereby be lost.
(Palmquist)
Different from the Eucharist, the wedding ring has more opportunity for personal investment, in the sense that there is not a fixed relation between the object and one unique entity. The sense of presence that the wedding ring conveys as well as the values associated with it changes based on the person.
Even though friendship bracelets and lockets have similar characteristics, they offer broader possibilities for meaning attribution. Although their function is conventional, these symbols can be both associated with za person as well as affording more freedom in terms of context.
Within the body is both the heart and the heart's content - the other ...The locket creates an additional secret recess of the body. Such recesses, which depend upon the protective functions of clothing, are always vulnerable to exposure.
(Stewart 1993)
At the extreme edge of the continuum there’s a variegated and infinite set of tokens with a functional or aesthetic value that can become personal objects of affection. Souvenirs are items taken from a given time and place symbolizing not only a point in time but often the person with whom the time was shared with. Thanks to our personal and idiosyncratic rules of ‘consecration’ they acquire the very special power of conveying a presence. Like imprints testify someone’s past presence by virtue of a physical sign, souvenirs suggest someone’s presence by virtue of an emotional association. Souvenirs come in many forms; some of them like photographs, postcards, etc. are more ‘classical’ and conventionally identified as such. However any kind of object can be included in this category, which is therefore the most open one.
The souvenir distinguishes experiences. The souvenir is not simply an object appearing out of context, an object from the past incongruosly surviving in the present; rather, its function is to envelop the present within the past. Souvenirs are magical objects because of this transformation.'
(Stewart 1993)
Understanding how the symbolic investment occurs and is shared over distance opens interesting possibilities to design tools that convey presence.
solely for your information: two extracts from old FARAWAY texts: 1
Presence and tele-presence: the potential of sensorial information.
If the research dealing with presence and tele-presence is still on working practices and game playing, focusing on the activity to being performed, in the recent years there has been a growing interest in the emotional and affective dimension of remote interaction.
This new line of research centralizes on non-verbal languages and the use of sensorial modalities both for sending or receiving messages over distance. Blowing, touching, squeezing, smelling, lighting, vibration, are all increasingly used in experimental works to explore new ways of communicating presence. Projects like ‘LumiTouch’ (Chang et al. 2001), ‘The Bed’ (Dodge 1997), ‘Kiss communicator’ (Buchenau & Fulton 2000) and ‘Feather, Scent and Shaker’ (Strong & Gaver 1996) are some of the examples of this approach. Different from many existing means of communication, the concepts or prototypes proposed by these pieces incorporate sensorial information as elements of private language within the couple. The interesting aspect of this emerging trend is the underlying idea that alternative and less defined ways of expression might evoke another person’s presence in a more suggestive and poetic way than the exchange of verbal content.
Besides the common approach, these projects utilize specific and diverse mechanisms for the couple to interact remotely. Both ‘LumiTouch’ and ‘The Bed’ invest everyday objects with behaviors mimicking or recalling metaphorically the actions of a person that is far away; a couple of connected pictures frames that light up in response to touch in the first case, typical elements of a bedroom (pillows, bed, curtains) reacting to the actions of a remote person through aural, visual, and tactile messages in the latter. Conversely, the ‘Kiss Communicator’ and ‘Feather, Scent and Shaker’ propose pairs of artifacts specifically designed to allow couples to create and share a new sensorial language.
A sensorial channel that is commonly explored and seems particularly promising in distance communication is the tactile one. As several projects demonstrate, haptic communication offers great opportunities not only to convey presence (Brave & Dahely 1997), but also to develop complex languages over distance (Fogg et al. 1998; Chang et al. 2002). Even if they are not specifically focused on intimate relationships, projects like ‘inTouch’, ‘HandJive’ and ‘ComTouch’ shed light on the expressiveness of this kind of information and its possible role in augmenting existing channels.
If the research dealing with presence and tele-presence is still on working practices and game playing, focusing on the activity to being performed, in the recent years there has been a growing interest in the emotional and affective dimension of remote interaction.
This new line of research centralizes on non-verbal languages and the use of sensorial modalities both for sending or receiving messages over distance. Blowing, touching, squeezing, smelling, lighting, vibration, are all increasingly used in experimental works to explore new ways of communicating presence. Projects like ‘LumiTouch’ (Chang et al. 2001), ‘The Bed’ (Dodge 1997), ‘Kiss communicator’ (Buchenau & Fulton 2000) and ‘Feather, Scent and Shaker’ (Strong & Gaver 1996) are some of the examples of this approach. Different from many existing means of communication, the concepts or prototypes proposed by these pieces incorporate sensorial information as elements of private language within the couple. The interesting aspect of this emerging trend is the underlying idea that alternative and less defined ways of expression might evoke another person’s presence in a more suggestive and poetic way than the exchange of verbal content.
Besides the common approach, these projects utilize specific and diverse mechanisms for the couple to interact remotely. Both ‘LumiTouch’ and ‘The Bed’ invest everyday objects with behaviors mimicking or recalling metaphorically the actions of a person that is far away; a couple of connected pictures frames that light up in response to touch in the first case, typical elements of a bedroom (pillows, bed, curtains) reacting to the actions of a remote person through aural, visual, and tactile messages in the latter. Conversely, the ‘Kiss Communicator’ and ‘Feather, Scent and Shaker’ propose pairs of artifacts specifically designed to allow couples to create and share a new sensorial language.
A sensorial channel that is commonly explored and seems particularly promising in distance communication is the tactile one. As several projects demonstrate, haptic communication offers great opportunities not only to convey presence (Brave & Dahely 1997), but also to develop complex languages over distance (Fogg et al. 1998; Chang et al. 2002). Even if they are not specifically focused on intimate relationships, projects like ‘inTouch’, ‘HandJive’ and ‘ComTouch’ shed light on the expressiveness of this kind of information and its possible role in augmenting existing channels.
serious chop up job - apologies in advance :)
Me and you: micro-structures in public space
Concert story [private]
At the Depeche Mode concert last night, I was wearing silver stiletto heels and black trousers with lots of zippers. My friend Vanessa was also wearing black, with copper heels, and we both wore old-school leather jackets with lots of hardware. This was not my ordinary costume. It was a personal fashion show, a performative artifact that seemed appropriate for the nostalgia. I penetrated the performance and became an active participant. All dressed up I could play and transgress and engage in non-professor-like behaviour.
Microstructure 1
Clothes as disguise/communication/performance
Clothes as disguise create microstructures that function at many social/cultural/psychological levels.
“Digital technologies allow us to shape and edit that evidence to reflect more subtle – or more poetic – aspects of our identity and our history. Patterns of touch, stress, and bending within garments (the subtle wrinkles of time and use) can be quantified digitally and utilized to reconfigure physical patterns and additional characteristics of those garments. Gestures and personal history can, in this way, be perceived, manipulated, and represented on displays integrated into the fabric. Collectively, these digitally-augmented garments change and modulate social interactions."
City story [private]
My baby likes to sleep in public spaces, safe in her buggy, the movement of our walking calms her down. I work on park benches, bus stops, alleyways, searching for a quiet corner, keeping out of the wind as I stumble into another afternoon's tiredness of the kind that coffee cannot fix. Walking through the city with my voice/mail/web device on mute/vibrate in my back pocket, I can access my screen and text based interfaces, I can write, email, look things up... but what I really want to know is: where are you (you, who are not here)? Are you awake? Are you ok? Are you hungry? Do you remember?
Microstructure 2
Mobile technology creates invisible communities
Mobile technologies create microstructures in many ways, with in particular focus on "virtual communities" and the invisible.
Who are we communicating with? Ourselves? Passers-by? Someone elsewhere? Are we communicating at all? Couldn’t we just be hiding? Concentrating? Keeping out of trouble?
SMS story [private]
At the same time, I was completely ignoring everything else around me, because I was busy SMS'ing all of my closest friends. My eyes were focused on the little screen of my phone, concentrating hard to deploy my mid-thirties mobile typing skills, sending messages like "I am at a Depeche Mode show!!!" and "I am wearing silver stiletto heels!!!"
Microstructure 3
Communication in language or signals
... electronic textiles and research into remote communication and presence applications that attempt to enhance communication and social interactions in HCI (human computer interaction). Projects such as inTouch [2] from Hiroshi Ishii’s group allow people to share the illusion of touch (physical force and feedback) across two remote locations. LumiTouch [3] allows individuals to sense each other’s presence through ambient illumination. Those and the countless other remote communication (indication of presence or emotional state) devices created by students in New Media programs around the world, such as the vibrating pillows, the illuminating pebbles, the heating key chains, and colour-changing orbs, flirt with the boundaries imposed on us by physical space constraints. Electronics can be used to break the boundaries of space and time, in order to create micro-worlds where we create our own realities, where we can feel our lovers and communicate through many different channels [edit edit edit]
Wearable technologies
If we define this as electronically augmented garments and accessories, will allow us not only to merge those two kinds of microstructures, but will also create whole new areas for exploration and play.
Onwards to introduce themes: intemacy, magic and memory.
Intimacy
The nearest 5 cm's around the body, the zone where the clothes is, intimate and practical at the same time.
"Clothing is one of the most intimate things that we interact with in our daily lives. Because of its extremely close relationship to our body, our (non-digital) clothing is able to witness some of our most intimate interactions; it is able to record our fear and excitement, our stress and our strain, through the collection of sweat, skin cells, stains, and tears. It becomes worn over time and carries the evidence of our identity and our history.
[where is this quote from?]
Magic
It is important to think carefully about magic.
[picture me scurrying away to find quotes and squirrel up references J ]
"Active materials (physical materials that have the ability to change over time and be controlled electronically) introduce many exciting opportunities for art and design, but also present many new challenges. These challenges are not only conceptual (how to imagine animated, interactive artifacts that have unexpected reactions or behaviours), but also political, ethical, social, environmental, and cultural."
Memory
"At the same time, with contemporary advances in potential memory capacity, we need to ask what are the design and creative capacities of memory rich materials and forms. What models of memory and mind are used in designing technologies that remember? How does our current generation of electronic textile and wearable computing technologies allow us to build memories? And, most importantly, how do we include the need, capacity, and desire to forget?"
[You know, I think there is a whole + wonderful article to be written about memory – especially in connection with historic textile crafts, modifications, repairs, alterations and hand-me-downs.]
Conclusion and end bit
No idea what would happen here – but we would work it out. Something statement/manifesto like relating to intimacy/magic/memory?
Concert story [private]
At the Depeche Mode concert last night, I was wearing silver stiletto heels and black trousers with lots of zippers. My friend Vanessa was also wearing black, with copper heels, and we both wore old-school leather jackets with lots of hardware. This was not my ordinary costume. It was a personal fashion show, a performative artifact that seemed appropriate for the nostalgia. I penetrated the performance and became an active participant. All dressed up I could play and transgress and engage in non-professor-like behaviour.
Microstructure 1
Clothes as disguise/communication/performance
Clothes as disguise create microstructures that function at many social/cultural/psychological levels.
“Digital technologies allow us to shape and edit that evidence to reflect more subtle – or more poetic – aspects of our identity and our history. Patterns of touch, stress, and bending within garments (the subtle wrinkles of time and use) can be quantified digitally and utilized to reconfigure physical patterns and additional characteristics of those garments. Gestures and personal history can, in this way, be perceived, manipulated, and represented on displays integrated into the fabric. Collectively, these digitally-augmented garments change and modulate social interactions."
City story [private]
My baby likes to sleep in public spaces, safe in her buggy, the movement of our walking calms her down. I work on park benches, bus stops, alleyways, searching for a quiet corner, keeping out of the wind as I stumble into another afternoon's tiredness of the kind that coffee cannot fix. Walking through the city with my voice/mail/web device on mute/vibrate in my back pocket, I can access my screen and text based interfaces, I can write, email, look things up... but what I really want to know is: where are you (you, who are not here)? Are you awake? Are you ok? Are you hungry? Do you remember?
Microstructure 2
Mobile technology creates invisible communities
Mobile technologies create microstructures in many ways, with in particular focus on "virtual communities" and the invisible.
Who are we communicating with? Ourselves? Passers-by? Someone elsewhere? Are we communicating at all? Couldn’t we just be hiding? Concentrating? Keeping out of trouble?
SMS story [private]
At the same time, I was completely ignoring everything else around me, because I was busy SMS'ing all of my closest friends. My eyes were focused on the little screen of my phone, concentrating hard to deploy my mid-thirties mobile typing skills, sending messages like "I am at a Depeche Mode show!!!" and "I am wearing silver stiletto heels!!!"
Microstructure 3
Communication in language or signals
... electronic textiles and research into remote communication and presence applications that attempt to enhance communication and social interactions in HCI (human computer interaction). Projects such as inTouch [2] from Hiroshi Ishii’s group allow people to share the illusion of touch (physical force and feedback) across two remote locations. LumiTouch [3] allows individuals to sense each other’s presence through ambient illumination. Those and the countless other remote communication (indication of presence or emotional state) devices created by students in New Media programs around the world, such as the vibrating pillows, the illuminating pebbles, the heating key chains, and colour-changing orbs, flirt with the boundaries imposed on us by physical space constraints. Electronics can be used to break the boundaries of space and time, in order to create micro-worlds where we create our own realities, where we can feel our lovers and communicate through many different channels [edit edit edit]
Wearable technologies
If we define this as electronically augmented garments and accessories, will allow us not only to merge those two kinds of microstructures, but will also create whole new areas for exploration and play.
Onwards to introduce themes: intemacy, magic and memory.
Intimacy
The nearest 5 cm's around the body, the zone where the clothes is, intimate and practical at the same time.
"Clothing is one of the most intimate things that we interact with in our daily lives. Because of its extremely close relationship to our body, our (non-digital) clothing is able to witness some of our most intimate interactions; it is able to record our fear and excitement, our stress and our strain, through the collection of sweat, skin cells, stains, and tears. It becomes worn over time and carries the evidence of our identity and our history.
[where is this quote from?]
Magic
It is important to think carefully about magic.
[picture me scurrying away to find quotes and squirrel up references J ]
"Active materials (physical materials that have the ability to change over time and be controlled electronically) introduce many exciting opportunities for art and design, but also present many new challenges. These challenges are not only conceptual (how to imagine animated, interactive artifacts that have unexpected reactions or behaviours), but also political, ethical, social, environmental, and cultural."
Memory
"At the same time, with contemporary advances in potential memory capacity, we need to ask what are the design and creative capacities of memory rich materials and forms. What models of memory and mind are used in designing technologies that remember? How does our current generation of electronic textile and wearable computing technologies allow us to build memories? And, most importantly, how do we include the need, capacity, and desire to forget?"
[You know, I think there is a whole + wonderful article to be written about memory – especially in connection with historic textile crafts, modifications, repairs, alterations and hand-me-downs.]
Conclusion and end bit
No idea what would happen here – but we would work it out. Something statement/manifesto like relating to intimacy/magic/memory?
btw
i am generally taking huuuuge liberties with your text - i hope you dont mind and i invite you to do the same :)
and indeed if you are missing a bit you love - edit it right back in, ok?
and indeed if you are missing a bit you love - edit it right back in, ok?
fantastic work :) so...
ok
so how about a structure that is:
concert story [private]
micro-structures: clothes as disguise/communication/performance
city story [private]
micro-structures: mobile technology creates invisible communities
SMS story [private]
micro-structures: communication – language or life sign
Wearables: introduce and onwards to what i sense could be our 3 main themes:
intimacy
magic
memory
then:
some sort of ending/conclusion [depending on where the writing is going]
so how about a structure that is:
concert story [private]
micro-structures: clothes as disguise/communication/performance
city story [private]
micro-structures: mobile technology creates invisible communities
SMS story [private]
micro-structures: communication – language or life sign
Wearables: introduce and onwards to what i sense could be our 3 main themes:
intimacy
magic
memory
then:
some sort of ending/conclusion [depending on where the writing is going]
Thursday, May 18, 2006
At the Depeche Mode concert last night, I was wearing silver stiletto heels and black trousers with lots of zippers. My friend Vanessa was also wearing black, with copper heels, and we both wore old-school leather jackets with lots of hardware. This is not how I usually dress, even though my professional life does involve museum lectures and contemporary art shows. This was not an ordinary costume. It was a personal fashion show, a performative artifact, that seemed appropriate for the nostalgia. It allowed me to penetrate the performance and become an active participant. It allowed me to transgress in a safe and playful way, without shame. In particular, it allowed me to ignore my usual fear about possibly being seen by my students while engaging in non-professor-like behaviour.
At the same time, as we were dancing to Just Can't Get Enough, I was also completely ignoring Vanessa and, in fact, everything else around me, because I was busy SMS'ing all of my closest friends. My eyes were focused on the little screen of my phone, concentrating hard to deploy my mid-thirties mobile typing skills, sending messages like "I am at a Depeche Mode show!!!" and "I am wearing silver stilletto heels!!!".
At the same time, as we were dancing to Just Can't Get Enough, I was also completely ignoring Vanessa and, in fact, everything else around me, because I was busy SMS'ing all of my closest friends. My eyes were focused on the little screen of my phone, concentrating hard to deploy my mid-thirties mobile typing skills, sending messages like "I am at a Depeche Mode show!!!" and "I am wearing silver stilletto heels!!!".
1- clothes as disguise, create micro-structures that function at many social/cultural/psychological levels
2- mobile technologies create micro-structures in many ways, with in particular focus on "virtual communities" and the invisible
3- wearable technologies, if we define this as electronically-augmented garments and accessories, will allow us not only to merge those two kinds of micro-structures, but will also create whole new areas for exploration and play.
"Clothing is one of the most intimate things that we interact with in our daily lives. Because of its extremely close relationship to our body, our (non-digital) clothing is able to witness some of our most intimate interactions; it is able to record our fear and excitement, our stress and our strain, through the collection of sweat, skin cells, stains, and tears. It becomes worn over time and carries the evidence of our identity and our history.
Digital technologies allow us to shape and edit that evidence to reflect more subtle – or more poetic – aspects of our identity and our history. Patterns of touch, stress, and bending within garments (the subtle wrinkles of time and use) can be quantified digitally and utilized to reconfigure physical patterns and additional characteristics of those garments. Gestures and personal history can, in this way, be perceived, manipulated, and represented on displays integrated into the fabric. Collectively, these digitally-augmented garments change and modulate social interactions."
4- it is important to think carefully about magic:
"Active materials (physical materials that have the ability to change
over time and be controlled electronically) introduce many exciting
opportunities for art and design, but also present many new challenges.
These challenges are not only conceptual (how to imagine
animated, interactive artifacts that have unexpected reactions or behaviors),
but also political, ethical, social, environmental, and cultural."
My particular interest in memory:
"At the same time, with contemporary advances in potential memory
capacity, we need to ask what are the design and creative capacities
of memory rich materials and forms. What models of memory and
mind are used in designing technologies that remember? How does
our current generation of electronic textile and wearable computing
technologies allow us to build memories? And, most importantly,
how do we include the need, capacity, and desire to forget?"
2- mobile technologies create micro-structures in many ways, with in particular focus on "virtual communities" and the invisible
3- wearable technologies, if we define this as electronically-augmented garments and accessories, will allow us not only to merge those two kinds of micro-structures, but will also create whole new areas for exploration and play.
"Clothing is one of the most intimate things that we interact with in our daily lives. Because of its extremely close relationship to our body, our (non-digital) clothing is able to witness some of our most intimate interactions; it is able to record our fear and excitement, our stress and our strain, through the collection of sweat, skin cells, stains, and tears. It becomes worn over time and carries the evidence of our identity and our history.
Digital technologies allow us to shape and edit that evidence to reflect more subtle – or more poetic – aspects of our identity and our history. Patterns of touch, stress, and bending within garments (the subtle wrinkles of time and use) can be quantified digitally and utilized to reconfigure physical patterns and additional characteristics of those garments. Gestures and personal history can, in this way, be perceived, manipulated, and represented on displays integrated into the fabric. Collectively, these digitally-augmented garments change and modulate social interactions."
4- it is important to think carefully about magic:
"Active materials (physical materials that have the ability to change
over time and be controlled electronically) introduce many exciting
opportunities for art and design, but also present many new challenges.
These challenges are not only conceptual (how to imagine
animated, interactive artifacts that have unexpected reactions or behaviors),
but also political, ethical, social, environmental, and cultural."
My particular interest in memory:
"At the same time, with contemporary advances in potential memory
capacity, we need to ask what are the design and creative capacities
of memory rich materials and forms. What models of memory and
mind are used in designing technologies that remember? How does
our current generation of electronic textile and wearable computing
technologies allow us to build memories? And, most importantly,
how do we include the need, capacity, and desire to forget?"
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Sunday, May 14, 2006
babbling...
in defense of the slow and non verbal [display]
as I walk through the city (any city) with my voice/mail/web devise on mute/vibrate in my back pocket I am utilizing the opertunity to access my screen and text based interfaces, I can connect with work, look things up, study... but what I really want to know is : where are you (you who are not here)? are you awake? are you ok? Are you hungry? Do you still remember?
My baby likes to sleep in public spaces, safe in her buggy, the movement of our walking calms her down... I try to work, on parkbenches, bus stops, alleyways. This text is written in public space, searching for a quiet corner, keeping out of the wind as I stumble into another afternoon's tirednes (the kind that coffee cannot fix).
as I walk through the city (any city) with my voice/mail/web devise on mute/vibrate in my back pocket I am utilizing the opertunity to access my screen and text based interfaces, I can connect with work, look things up, study... but what I really want to know is : where are you (you who are not here)? are you awake? are you ok? Are you hungry? Do you still remember?
My baby likes to sleep in public spaces, safe in her buggy, the movement of our walking calms her down... I try to work, on parkbenches, bus stops, alleyways. This text is written in public space, searching for a quiet corner, keeping out of the wind as I stumble into another afternoon's tirednes (the kind that coffee cannot fix).
Saturday, May 13, 2006
uh
we need to get going, deadline aproaching etc... [realised last night]
what do you think about it all?
did you see the mag?
let just start with some ultra simple interview ping pong and see where we go...
:)
so do you see wearables as hypotetical future applications or something which is already current and here?
what do you think about it all?
did you see the mag?
let just start with some ultra simple interview ping pong and see where we go...
:)
so do you see wearables as hypotetical future applications or something which is already current and here?
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