Dear Michele,
Many thanks for your absolutely intriguing post. One of the impetus' for
our decision to host this discussion this month was to forefront the
cross-disciplinarary issues that are prescient within the scope of wearable
technologies. Going beyond the typical notions of wearable and technology
Michele you bring to our attention so many examples of how these disciplines
are forging new research where design and the arts meet science and
medicine. Johannes your post just a few hours ago asks us to consider the
affect of the psychological where the boundaries of inside and outside are
rethought. Thanks to both of your for your posts! I hope our guests and
subscribers will weigh in. .
Renate
On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 11:38 AM, Michele Danjoux mdanj...@dmu.ac.ukwrote:
Re: Wearable Technologies: Cross Disciplinary Ventures.
In response to some of the things that have been discussed to date, I think
now, in the context of wearable technologies (where we are considering the
internal and external architectures and augmentation of the body) that it is
perhaps less interesting to talk about the notion of the ‘spectacle’ where
the main concern is to create memorable appearance (unless perhaps this is
to convey message as discussed below in Wonderland example) and to turn our
gaze more fully to ‘Human-Garment Interactions’ (David Bryson) and the
importance of both physical and digital materiality where we look to augment
the senses through a better understanding of both the technological,
material and inter/intra psychological dimensions.
Textile and garment technologies now have the capabilities to augment the
body both inside and out, textiles repair bulging arteries (stents) for
instance to offer a patching and compression for damaged systems when the
body can no longer effectively function or sustain itself. This type of
compression can also be exerted externally for post-operative garments to
encourage the flow of lymphatics and aid recovery. In a military context for
the compression category, we have specially designed inflatable suits for
fighter pilots to combat the effects of G-force.
All this requires a superb knowledge of the human body, its biological,
structural architectures, functioning systems, capabilities under duress
etc. Fashion designers usually do not have this knowledge and I have often
found in my many years of being a fashion designer / educator that
fashioners designers and students will rarely pay detailed attention to the
human body from a structural, movement and functioning point of view. Their
questions always have focused on the design aesthetics generally, as
suitable for a standard size 10-12 body and so we often find that a new
design trend, silhouette etc., will in fact govern the movement of the body
in the garment so as to train the body as opposed to allowing a two-way
exchange.
Through my own work, with dancers within digital performance contexts, I
employ a more chorographic approach to design of wearable for performer,
where co-creation and iterative design methods are key. My design approach
combines the practical and physical with the theoretical and philosophical.
But generally, I like to introduce the materials and technologies as
initiators of design concepts and motivational tools for movement. Over the
years, I have questioned the static and essentially anatomically uninformed
fashion design process to employ more dynamic and scientific approaches to
design. In a way, my design process has also become more closely aligned
with that of the product designer with prototyping and refinement of
Human-Garment Interactions, but primarily, I see myself as a choreographer
re-writing body and garment in emergent design-in-motion contexts.
David Bryson, University of Derby, UK, who lectures in forensic science and
has a background in studies of anatomy, posits the need for closer
Human-Garment Interaction in his essay on ‘Designing Smart Clothing for the
Body’ in the book ‘Smart Clothes and Wearable Technology.’ He acknowledges
that ‘there is now wide understanding in the computer industry of what is
termed Human-Computer Interactions (HCI), the design of interfaces looking
at the way humans interact with technology… This work now needs to move into
the realm of garments to lead an appreciation of what I am terming
Human-Garment Interactions (HGI).’
For me, the garments and their integrated technologies can be like
extensions of the natural sensing body. ‘We use instruments as an extension
of our hands and they may serve also as an extension of our senses. We
assimilate them to our body by pouring ourselves into them…’
Michael Polanyi, The Study of Man (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1957), p. 25.
Experiential wearing and its impact on the design process is also a growing
area of interest in the realm of garment /fashion design and the notion of
creating a better understanding of the
