V2_ Knowledgebase

Through an interdisciplinary lens that brings together engineering, art, cognitive science, and healthcare, I explore the anthropomorphic nature of hybrid physical/digital objects and their promise to be catalysts towards unforeseen discoveries. I design objects to offer anima and perspective: from the haptic jacket that an autistic patient wears to express to the doctor what it means to be sensory defensive, to the electromagnetic field detector bracelet that transforms invisible information into visible data for a feeling of empowerment, or an environment where instead of you taking care of your avatar in massive online games, your avatar turns around and takes care of your biological needs.

The Climate Dress is made of conductive embroidery, over hundred of tiny LED lights inserted into the embroidery, a CO2 sensor and an Arduino Lilypad microprocessor. The LEDs visualize the level of CO2 in the nearby surroundings and are powered trough the embroidery.

A Fab Lab (fabrication laboratory) is a small-scale workshop with an array of computer controlled tools that cover several different length scales and various materials, with the aim to make "almost anything". This includes technology-enabled products generally perceived as limited to mass production. While Fab Labs have yet to compete with mass production and its associated economies of scale in fabricating widely distributed products, they have already shown the potential to empower individuals to create smart devices for themselves. These devices can be tailored to local or personal needs in ways that are not practical or economical using mass production.

Thesis: This thesis consists of a series of extensive projects which aim to explore a new designer role for fashion. It is a role that experiments with how fashion can be reverse engineered, hacked, tuned and shared among many participants as a form of social activism. This social design practice can be called the hacktivism of fashion. It is an engaged and collective process of enablement, creative resistance and DIY practice, where a community share methods and experiences on how to expand action spaces and develop new forms of craftsmanship. In this practice, the designer engages participants to reform fashion from a phenomenon of dictations and anxiety to a collective experience of empowerment, in other words, to make them become fashion-able. As its point of departure, the research takes the practice of hands-on exploration in the DIY upcycling of clothes through “open source” fashion “cookbooks”. By means of hands-on processes, the projects endeavour to create a complementary understanding of the modes of production within the field of fashion design. The artistic research projects have ranged from DIY-kits released at an international fashion week, fashion experiments in galleries, collaborative “hacking” at a shoe factory, engaged design at a rehabilitation centre as well as combined efforts with established fashion brands. Using parallels from hacking, heresy, fan fiction, small change and professional-amateurs, the thesis builds a non-linear framework by which the reader can draw diagonal interpretations through the artistic research projects presented. By means of this alternative reading new understandings may emerge that can expand the action spaces available for fashion design. This approach is not about subverting fashion as much as hacking and tuning it, and making its sub-routines run in new ways, or in other words, bending the current while still keeping the power on.

Interactive Wear AG was founded in May 2005. The company headquarters are located in Starnberg near Munich, Germany. The company emerged from the complete acquisition of Infineon Technologies AG's wearable electronics activities.

The MIT Media Lab applies an unorthodox research approach to envision the impact of emerging technologies on everyday lifeótechnologies that promise to fundamentally transform our most basic notions of human capabilities. Unconstrained by traditional disciplines, Lab designers, engineers, artists, and scientists work atelier-style in close to 30 research groups conducting more than 400 projects that range from neuroengineering, to how children learn, to developing the city car of the future. Lab researchers foster a unique culture of learning by doing, developing technologies that empower people of all ages, from all walks of life, in all societies, to design and invent new possibilities for themselves and their communities.

Platforms, the latest series of work in the ongoing Aphrodite Project, is a social sculpture: an interactive, wearable device that is a conceptual homage to the cult of the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, a practical object for contemporary sex workers, and a vehicle for public dialogue. An integrated system of shoes and online services, Platforms draws on innovations made by venerated courtesans from antiquity to improve conditions of 21st century women. Despite advances in culture and technology, sex workers are now perceived to be outlaws by trade and are vulnerable to surveillance and violence. Platforms empowers people by providing tools they need to stay safe.

Konarka Power Plastic is a photovoltaic material that captures both indoor and outdoor light and converts it into direct current (DC) electrical energy. This energy can be used immediately, stored for later use, or converted to other forms. Power Plastic can be applied to a limitless number of potential applications ñ from microelectronics to portable power, remote power and building-integrated applications.

Riso carries out research on future generations of photovoltaic technologies (PV) and in particular polymer solar cells. In addition, we look into other means of utilizing sunlight; for instance to reduce carbon dioxide to synthetic fuels (solar fuels). Solar energy is a focus point in many strategies for a sustainable energy supply. The European Commissionís Strategic Energy Plan (SET-plan) envisages a Solar Europe Initiative, where photovoltaics and concentrated solar power (CSP) supply as much power as wind mills in the future.

Smartex was founded in 1999 to exploit new findings in the field of ìsmart materialsî with the aim to develop innovative solutions and products answering the need of innovation and hi-tech transfer processes towards the textile world.

F.I.T. meets M.I.T. in Switch Craft, a book of 20 ultra-modern projects that are equal parts fashion and function. From a skirt that can streak trails of light on the dance floor to a laptop sleeve thatís the first to know when you're in a Wi-Fi zone, these projects are made for the wired (or wireless) world. Without sacrificing style or being more complicated than sixth-grade science class, they integrate lights, vibration, and sound with sewing to create edgy, attractive accessories and clothing. So if youíre ready to take your crafting not only to another level but another frontier, let Switch Craft bring your handiwork into the twenty-first century.

Unravel: the SIGGRAPH2006 Fashion Show presents a runway show of innovative and experimental works in computational and conceptual couture, fashion with a social agenda, science-inspired form, and new technologies of material fabrication. Unravel brings together the work of designers and artists from the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia who are seeking to redefine the notion of ‘wearable.’ In the increasingly mobile nature of contemporary life, it has become important to contemplate how the devices we carry and the garments we wear converge into a ‘secondary skin’ which function as an extension of ourselves, in both ability and perception. By using fashion, a medium which has always been associated with self-expression and personal identity, these designers seek to demonstrate how the use (or misuse) of technology and its modes of production have the power to stimulate, delight, and inspire in ways as yet untapped in the fashion world. Gone are the stereotypical bulky cyborg devices; what emerged are garments of beauty, subtlety and elegance in form. Some bring to light important social issues — redefining our notions of personal space, networked environments, and issues of privacy and protection. Others relish in pure delight, reminding us how technology also has the power to enhance our personal relationships and celebrate fantasy and play as part of the human condition.