(In)visible - extension of our body’s abilities.
{ an exploration of possibilities which will open for the fashion industry as new "smart" materials emerge allowing the clothes to react to surrounding sound, lighting conditions or even owner`s emotional state }
In the physical world, we can control and protect our identity, but it’s barely can be done online, your virtual identity lives its own life: people can share, save or repost your information, slowly separating it from you. Knowing it, we still post millions of photos of ourselves, allowing access to our digital identity 24/7.
{ wearable object serves to simulate a conversation, debate and critique over the future implication of bio-materials in the manufacture of physical objects }
The speculative project which shows an attempt to integrate natural, unpredictable process into a planned design process. It is possible to plan the construction and material, but neither to predict the shape, nor the final outcome.
Concept:
My physical outcome for this brief is to visualise physically ‘virtual actions’ from social media that we can’t see unless we get a notification. What if a person could physically feel when someone is looking at your photo online, liking it or reposting it, by using interactive garment on the person’s body, which is activated by the activity in your social media.
You can’t stop the garment from moving or growing on your body, the same way as you don’t have the power to protect your digital identity. Online actions that are done towards us, by looking/zooming of photos, making screenshots, or commenting, you would be able to feel physical, an uncomfortable feeling, right? My main intention is not to answer questions about our addiction to social media, virtual representations of our ‘self ’, what I want is to let people physically feel and see, what happening to their ‘digital bodies’ by merging it with their physical one.
{ designed as an alternative method of communicating information. Material: Bacteria spins cellulose, a flexible organic material that contracts and hardens around the physical form }
{ I wanted to use traditional methods of sewing to create volume and space where I would hide motors that would move the textile triggered by Arduino motion sensors. Figure 3: export obj.file of the pattern to Unity and play it in Augmented Reality using ARKit }
The final physical prototype is a mechanical clothes garment that has motion sensors connected to the Arduino board and small motors hidden behind the fabric, a presence of a person near the garment will trigger motors, creating movement on the fabric. Same as, when a person would look at your Instagram photo, the garment would start moving, the presence of a spectator is very important. I was mainly inspired by Neri Oxman with her speculative design with synthetic biology and Ying Gao mechanical dresses.
Smart fabrics
1. Fabric moves as if breezing
2. Movement sensors that detect approaching spectators
3. Garment that moves and change in response to noise, motion
4. Light sensors, with tiny cameras linked to Raspberry Pi board, to gather information about the environment.
{ to visualise my idea, I started with 3D modelling and motion tracking to show the growth of the garment on the person’s body. Cinema 4D/ Unity ARKit }
Inspiration behind mechanical garment: Archigram
The main idea of Archigram is to present the city not as an architectural system, but as a combination of various structures uniting the people living in it. The Archigram group and its magazine significantly influenced not only the development of the theory of architecture but also became the basis for creating new, fantastic concepts and ideas for building buildings.
Archigram did not try to reinvent the modernist principles but instead tried to accelerate them and push the conservative climate to become more promising. In truth, they felt that art and architecture were lagging behind due to their inability to keep up with products and technological advances that had already become part of everyday life.
In general, Archigram understood that times are changing, lives are changing, and architecture and urbanism must be able to respond and change just as quickly. Whatever the architects do, we must do it with creativity, conviction, and an unshakable belief that even the most eccentric ideas can become a future reality.
{ Unity ARKit + PBR materials + Real time reflection in Augmented reality }
Augmented Reality
I created abstract 3D animations where I overlay our ‘virtual self ’ represented in social media (in abstract form) with a physical one. The amount of the information and actions towards us by posting, sharing, commenting, that is happening inside social media would physically grow on your body, you won’t be able to control it, as you can’t control your information online. The process that you can’t see, is visualised through growing garment on your body.
I recreated clay patterns based on 3D models I did earlier. I will show the animation of the pattern through Augmented Reality. Cinema 4D/ Unity ARKit/ Hand-made clay patterns }
For the physical prototype, I re-created small garment textures from clay (size of a bracelet), and by using ARKit Augmented Reality, can show the garment growth on the person’s body, the animation is tracked to the clay textures. For activating person’s garment, the spectator is using an app created on their phones created by ARKit Unity and have to tap on the screen so the garment will appear on the screen. The person can observe it through their phones, same way as a person would use social media.
To re-create actual growth of the garment from my animation is not an easy task, knowing the limitation both of my knowledge and materials, I’ve decided to use light sensors and semi-transparent 3D printing to create a static Installation of my garment. Same as motion sensors, light sensors would be activated by the presence of the spectator inside the 3D printed garment, creating light movement.
{ The animation of the garment can be seen through Augmented Reality using Unity ARKit }
Neri Oxman: I consider biology itself a form of technology. It is a ‘wet technology’ that deploys a series of chemical reactions to generate energy and enable complex life functions. Only instead of the digital binary logic it uses DNA to encode functionality.
“Nature inspired design”, these materials include a structure consisting of biocomposite skins derived from cellulose, chitasan and pectin, some of the most common biopolymers on earth.
