some ideas

Wearable Technology / Advanced Tech
Process, Materials and Technical documentation
Piece number 2 of Friends, Hosts And Parasites: Jacket
01. Objectives
02. Materials & Preliminary Research
03. Details on Inks
04. Printing
05. Electronics / Electricity
06. Coding

01. Objectives
Create a garment (jacket) with a pattern printed on it that only comes to life (becomes clearly visible) when the jacket is being worn and over time.

Technical challenge:
Electrically controlling 20 to 25 thermo-chromatic printed ink patterns by running resistive, conductive thread through it, and making it as wearable as possible.

02. Materials and Preliminary Research

a. Inks.
Ctiinks seems to be the primary producer and distributor of inks in North America, however, we were never able to get in touch with them.

We worked with the products Japanese company installed in California:
Matsui-Color
AQ Inks: datasheet | Temperature and Color ranges
Specific products we got: 37 Blue, 27 Black.
Mixed in with screen print fabric inks

b. Thread
We found 3 main ressource for conductive materials
1. canada
2. xxx sample
3. Bekhart

Beckart proved to be the most appropriate with the widest range of products and threads.
Specific products we used:

Lessons learnt //amongst other
1. Lots and lots of Ohm’s law
Trying to build the circuit to heat up the threads without shorting the ciruit

1. Batteries
   Batterie have internal resistance and this resistance value needs to be lower than the overall resistance on the circuit in order for the battery to work properly




2. Working with the Thermo Inks and trying to control them electrically
   The idea is simple but getting it right is tricky, we needed to find a balance between shorting and heating up.




3. About the PIC 16F819 and Code—The A Port of the Pic is set to analog by default, in order to use it as a digital input, the ADC registers need to be set for this—Using the timer interrupt to create a counter—The differences between manual cycling of turning pins ON and OFF and software PWM

Digital on off. All ports were made digital for the clusters of ports.

Basic shorting of thread that heats up the inks.

Laser cut the stencil that we used on the jacket. We were not able to screen a pre-stitched jacket.

Next Steps
a. Redesign the circuit to work with batteries – we need to figure out the internal resistance in a battery that is not allowing us to short it
b. Redesign the jacket/ other clothing that will hold more of a presence than the piece chosen.
c. Redesign the pattern with some of Annie Albers influences and a more life like ideas of patterns and clusters.
d. Re-code the whole project with the game of life – random features in mind. (I dont think we are interested in purely random but more on the lines of generative art)
e. Rework the INTERACTION. Here on further questioning and thinking it might be more interesting if the user had more control over the outfit – rather than just an on / off interaction. Maybe there is control of the level of interaction – how much of the pattern reveals – colors and so on.

This entails a complete redo – which could lend to a whole other “wearable” not just another jacket!

I am interested in the body and human emotions with little devices that seem to have a profound impact on people. By these I mean technologies like the cellphone, camera and i-pod that are kept close to the body. The body itself is soft and intimate – it forms, contorts and compensates to light, heat and touch. It has the language of gesture and communicates very effectively through this non-verbal communication. And it is through this frame of mind I want to explore the states of nakedness and aloneness and the human emotions entangled with it.

“exploring the evolutionary implications of an ever-present, ever-remembering technological second-skin. What happens to important human concepts such as aloneness, loss, nakedness?”

Exploring the states of nakedness and alonness as they relate to wearable technologies.

Why is this important?
In wearable technology as it stands today there is an emphasis on cyborgian science fiction-like work. By this I mean technology worn on the body in its current state. A TV head, hi-tech glasses that have weird eye pieces on them and pipes, computers and wires running all over the body. This is not what you want to walk down the road wearing!

I am interested in the body, human emotions and the smaller little things that seem to have a more profound impact on people. The body itself is soft and intimate it forms, contorts and compensates to light, heat and touch. It has the language of gesture and communicates very effectively through this non verbal communication. And it is through this frame of mind I want to explore the states of nakedness and aloneness and the human emotions entangled with it.

Incorporating technological devices onto the body is fascinating when it starts altering behaviors. The walkman was one such life changing device where it carved out your personal space in public. Hundreds of iterations of this have since been conceived all with the same basic goal. The cellphone was the next such device that let you “outsource” a segment of your memory into this device that help information in a compact fully functional mobile device. The significance of these two devices on personal interactions, habits and dependancies are fascinating. The i-pod, cellphone, digital camera and laptop are everyday electronic devices carried on the body that affect our everyday lives.

Going forward i am intending to develop a wearable or a series of wearables that are based on the relationships between the wearer and their everyday devices and the states of nakedness and alonness.

This idea was particularly inspired by a wearable technology conference blog, reference, that I came across. Here among many more potent social questions was this “What are the evolutionary implications of an ever-present, ever-remembering technological second skin. What happens to important human concepts such as aloneness, loss, nakedness?”

To present some context projects through my interpretation that address nakedness and alonness:

::The Amber Order:: Erik Sandelin and Magnus Torstensson.

AmberOrder

“Electricity keeps the world together. The Amber Order is a cult that pays reverence to, and expresses their trust in, the Great Technological Systems through sartorial submission and silent praise. Four Amber brothers made their first pilgrimage to Den Grå Hal for the 1/2 machine event in August 2003.”

This project is pertinent to my thesis as it addresses these intersections between the states on alonness and nakedness in a literal way. The monks are clothed in robes that are fastened together with old electromagnets. They walk in a group of four asking for current from house to house. The monks need other people to keep them clothed. if they don’t find people or the people won’t help them, they will be naked as the charge on the garment is lost and the robes fall off. This forms a direct correlation between Company+Clothed or Alone+Naked.

::Digital Peakcock Tails::
Dgital Peakcock Tails
“Although digital technology is becoming increasingly personal and intimate, electronic artefacts and systems are often conceived of as tools, designed to support goal-oriented tasks and activities as efficiently as possible. The Digital Peacock Tails project looks beyond this narrow point of view and employs digital technologies not only as efficient tools but also as beautifully challenging plumages.”

This is a sequence of electronic gresture.

We started working with the thermochromatic ink samples that we obtained as well as the conductive fabrics that we got.

Symbiotic wearable

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01. Starting point [recap]
Exploring the wearer / wearable relationship as a symbiotic one.
Symbiosis [Webster dictionary definition]
1 : the living together in more or less intimate association of two dissimilar organisms
2 : the intimate living together of two dissimilar organisms in a mutually beneficial relationship; (mutualism)

Organism characteristics include:
Movement, Feeding, Growth, Respiration, Reproduction, Senses
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02. Objective

Explore relationships with technology that imitate relationships that can be found in nature in order to design technological systems that can be adopted and used.

The assumption is that the intimacy and the dependency inherent in a symbiotic relationship will resonate in the user as fundamentally human and as such, create a stronger and more natural bond with the piece of technology.

Wearable technologies is an interesting place to develop these types of relationships first because of the inherently intimate nature of the relationship between the wearable and the wearer as well as the established physical proximity that makes a technology wearable. Ultimately similar design approaches could be applied to other areas of technology.

Keywords: intimacy, co-operation, passive/active, responsibility, nurturing

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03. Context.
[see inspirations earlier in the blog but also]
+ Looking at biomimicry and arguments made for mature like processes and patterns applied to technology

04. Audience and users

The main objective is to create conceptual rather than functional pieces for display and use in specific contained environment.

05. Design Criteria [thinking about how/what the designs should be]

Most wearable criteria as defined in class [here] apply.
Furthermore, the pieces should be

The benefits for the symbiant and the host should affect primary physical needs (not be only psychological)

The symbiant should be created as an organism with some life-like characteristics

The symbiant’s nature as an n organism should be obvious

The symbiant should appeal to the senses (sensuous) as one trick to evoque organism-like characteristics

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06. Proposed Solutions
1. Nature
a. Description

A drape made of air plants that can be wrapped around the body, shoulders or as head scarf when needed.

b. Symbiant relationship
The Symbiant needs sun. The host needs protection from the sun.
The host wears the garment in hot days to protect from direct sunlight while providing the symbiant with the sun it needs to grow. The denser the plants, the more effective a protection they provide.
On hot days the drape will also provide a cooling effect because of it’s porous qualities.
Additionally, the symbiant needs moisture and the host needs protection from it so the garment can also be worn in rainy and misty days as a protection, which also helps the symbiant’s overall health.

2. Light
a. Description

A network of lights living on a pre-existing garment.

A jacket will contain a print-like pattern that is almost seamless when not active and comes to live through the illumination of the different lights that compose it. The lights can only come to life to reveal the organic nature of the network when the jacket is being worn.

b. Symbiant relationship described
The symbiant (the network) needs the user to wear the jacket so it can exist on the flat surface of the back (or the chest).
The longer the jacket is worn, the more lights will light it and the more complex the organic patterns will look.
The host here doesn’t gain physical properties from the presence of the guest. He or she will gain in terms of enhanced visual effect. The longer one wears a piece of clothing the more confidence is gained and more extravagance can be expressed.

3. Structure
a. Description

A mechanical structure that lays motionless on the shoulders and flat when not alive and grows upwards when healthy and provides shielding and protection from sound and cold.

b. Symbiant relationship described
The symbiant needs power to come to live and grow. The host needs to protection around his ears and neck when exposed to the outside world.

Solar power will provide the voltage necessary for the structure to start moving outwards and will ensure that this functionality is active only when the host is outside.

Ex. As the wearer exit the Tisch building into Broadway, the symbiant gets powered by the exterior sunshine and grows to protect the wearer from the heavy sounds of the streets and provide some shielding and privacy amidst the crowd.

This symbiant will exist as an autonomous structure that can be placed on a diversity of garments and jackets.

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07. Feasibility & Production [Plan of action]

1. Nature
The nature piece is not the core element of the project. We will order a few plants and grow them as much as possible over the course of 10 weeks hoping we can get enough to create a finish garment the demonstrate the concept. The idea is to create a first visual (real) creation of what living garments made of living plants can look like and function.
Plan of action

get the plants [Spanish moth + series of epiphytes]

setup growing environment and structure for growth [garment base]

monitor, water and sun for 10 weeks

wear and present final piece if the plants grew (and survived)

2. Light

Plan A is to use printed EL to create the pattern on the jacket and wire each visual entity individually.

PlanB is to create the network using embedded LED lights dimmed and seamlessly integrated inside semi-translucent fabric layers.

A switch will be placed in the sleeves to inform the symbiant when the jacket is being worn or not. The micro-controller will turn different sections of the network on or off according to an algorithm that relates time to the unraveling of the network.

get flat LEDs and control array with one micro-controller

the first step is to create a small 4’’x4’’ prototype of the network embedded inside fabric.

verify the micro-controller’s ability to execute complex algorithm

create prototype of the sleeve switch

3. Structure
Design a very light structure that can be activated with only one or two very low power motors. Take inspiration from origami and paper folding techniques to create something that can easily be transformed from one state to another by a simple linear motion or trigger.
Test solar powered motors (already ordered) and determined the amount of power needed to move the motor from one position to the other.
Determine whether the motor has two states and goes from one to the other automatically, whether there needs to be constant power for the structure to be maintained in the upward position, or if the wearer manually brings the structure back to the latent position after the motor has brought it up.

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On further thinking out the idea of symbiosis with respect to making an interesting wearable we made a decision to walk down 3 paths to get our hands dirty.

1. n a t u r e
   we are going to get some “air plants” – epiphyte – any plant that grows upon or attached to another living plant.

epiphytic plants take nutrients from the air so they are using what is around them, to grow – they don’t require a substrate so that is interesting in itself – an independent organism that can potentially grow anywhere and that concept directly relates to what we might want to do with our ideas something that can be taken anywhere, or beyond the conventional sense of how it is applied. The correlation between a plant that can take from the most prevalent thing, air and convert it into essentials for growth is a very interesting aspect to deal with!

1. look into EL for Algorithms


2. look into Origami and Solar powered structures

Thinking about symbiosis & wearables.
introductory notes by mouna + sonali
october 6th, 2005

starting point
exploring the wearer / wearable relationship

Symbiosis (pl. symbioses) (from the Greek words syn = con/plus and biono = living) is an interaction between two organisms living together in more or less intimate association or even the merging of two dissimilar organisms.

Symbiosis – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2 organisms

1 or more interaction(s)

1 or more consequences
[ + ] [ – ] [ null ]

it brings about consequences of:
intimacy | merger | destruction | co-operation | evolutive | passive | active

So what is an organism?

Organisms(pl. symbioses) (in Greek organ on = instrument) is an assembly of organs that influence each other in such a way that they function as a more or less stable whole and have properties of life.
Organisms- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Life characteristics /no specific order
01. MOVEMENT
02. FEEDING
03. GROWTH
04. RESPIRATION
05. REPRODUCTION
06. SENSES [STIMULUS]

what we thought of that nurture on this
patterns
algorithms
networks
clothing

(human) HOST
vs. | +
(technological) SYMBIANT

Symbiant consequences [+]
01. growth
02. movement
03. reproduction
04. transformation (of states)

Symbiant consequences [-]
01. death
02. status quo

Human consequences [+]
01. increase movement
02. help respiration
03. nutritious
04. find mates
05. enhance senses

Symbiant consequences [-]
01. inhibit senses
02. inhibit vitals (respiration, strength)
03. repels others
04. death

inspiration – v i s u a l imagery and approach

36 tricks for design (from intro to industrial design)

1) brainstorm—> don’t think about feasibility, just go for quantity
2) look it up in the dictionary
3) think about the origin
4) famous ones (museum etc)
5) look at competitors (in stores)
6) look at parallel products
7) look at magazines, websites (www.coolhunting.com, www.transstudio.com)
8) sketching, doodling—> draw and see (exquisite corpse where each person draws a section of the body with
each section folded over so you can’t see what the other people drew until the very end) or (draw on a scroll so
its continues drawing)
9) create a timeline (what’s the use during its lifetime/day), user scenarios (different ages, circumstances, eras),
make real people (give them names, personalities, how would they use it), use celebrities, bad guys etc…
10) make a comic with the characters, put on a play (body storming)
11) change the brand (betty crocker vs nike)
12) change the brand use (hello kitty sex toys)
13) change one factor (material/color)
14) change the context (for kids/playboy?)
15) look at it upside down
16) create conflicts/contests
17) set deadlines (one minute or one week)
18) make lists
19) word games (rhyming to get your brain to think differently)
20) fill in the blanks (matrix like the periodic chart)
21) prioritize features (most important, least)
22) scramble prioritized features
23) write all features on cards and pick 2-3 at random
24) write provocative terms/words on cards and pick at random (soothing, sexy)
25) word salad (arrange and regroup)
26) randomness (flip a coin, roll dice, make it fit even if it seems wrong)
27) make it a game (make up rules)
28) change the rules
29) make it a story
30) what if pinnochio designed it? romeo?
31) show a friend or a stranger your ideas and feelings
32) ask a friend or stranger for ideas and feelings
33) go for a walk (take a break)
34) mock-up the idea (breadboard)
35) test it and see how to improve
36) start over

Assignment:

Make an item of clothing for yourself that fulfils at least one “aspect” of a “dream” item (does not have to look perfect or work, but present the idea of what it would look like or problem that it would solve, or present a problem that you have with an existing item, that you like but it is just not right (too long, wrong color, painful, sloppy etc).

Story… i walked into this very american indian store to “one stop shop” for all my friends in the states. Expensive Bombay Store. Perusing through the racks I found a skirt that i fell in love with – tho expensive I made a decission to pick it up. I looked carefully about size and i was convinced the shape would look good. Well these were the results!