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Wearable Technology

Snurb — Friday 23 October 2015 03:05

Speculative Design for Marginalised Communities

Wearable Technology | New Media Arts | AoIR 2015 |

And we're off! AoIR 2015 proper starts with a keynote by Micha Cárdenas, who begins with a choice: as the planet is dying, do we want to stay in hell or move to an ice planet? By popular vote, hell it is.

But hell is, well, hellish, and unbearable, and now we're offered a chance of the ocean moon or the ice planet – this time, we're choosing the ocean moon (and this is all highly interactive, with audience members literally racing up to the podium to choose our adventure).

This is a performance of an interactive hypertext fiction …

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Snurb — Tuesday 29 October 2013 05:25

The Push towards Niche Geosocial Data

'Big Data' | Social Media | Twitter | Mobile and Wireless Technologies | Wearable Technology | Compromised Data 2013 |

The final speaker on this first day of "Compromised Data" is Sidneyeve Matrix, who shifts our focus towards geosocial information as generated by smartphones and other mobile devices. Only 12% of US users as surveyed by the Pew Centre posted Foursquare check-ins in 2013, for example, down from 18% in 2011 - but this may mask a greater take-up of other location-based services, not least the Frequent Locations functionality in iOS7.

There is a continuing trend towards the consumerisation of geodata. Geosocial cultural arrangements are explored through the use of mobile communication patterns, but such analysis is notoriously …

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Snurb — Saturday 18 October 2008 20:04

Competing Logics of Emerging Sentient Urban Spaces

Politics | Mobile and Wireless Technologies | AoIR 2008 | ir9 | Wearable Technology |

Copenhagen.
The final keynote at AoIR 2008 is by Steve Graham. His interest is in the politics of urban space in the context of ubiquitous computing. He begins by noting utopian projections of the future, where everything is mediated profoundly through digital technologies - what Dana Cuff has called 'enacted environments'.

This includes visions of augmented reality (involving the delivery of location-specific information), and builds on ideas such as the 'Internet of Things', the use of RFIDs, biometrics, tracking systems, computerised surveillance, security discourses about e-borders, geolocation, GPS tracking, etc. This relies also on machine-readable entities, with sensors linked to databases that recognise and track individual objects of interest.

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Snurb — Monday 17 September 2007 12:07

Ambient Video, Locative Audio, and Grounded Media Art

PerthDAC 2007 | Wearable Technology | New Media Arts |

Perth.
We're on to the second Monday session at PerthDAC. Jim Bizzocchi is the first speaker, and he began by showing us an example of ambient video during the set-up period - here consisting of an assemblage of nature shots of mountains and streams blended into a slow video collage which has landscapes change subtly before our eyes. Ambient video is an emergent form of video expression made possible by current and new video technologies; it should change, but not quickly, and the details of changes should not be critical. Jim focusses here on cinematic versions of such ambient video - made for larger screens (including home theatre); the philosophy behind such video echoes Brian Eno's views of ambient music: 'as ignorable as it is interesting'. Ambient video captures our glance much as a painting might, revealing rich imagery at a time of our choosing.

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Snurb — Saturday 16 June 2007 07:01

Palpable Creativity, Cognition, Collaboration

C&C 2007 | Creative Industries | Wearable Technology | New Media Arts |

Washington, D.C.
We're now in the wrap-up session for Creativity & Cognition 2007. Programme co-chair Elisa Giaccardi begins by highlighting the range of themes, topics, and disciplinary backgrounds represented here, and introduces keynote speaker Thecla Schiphorst. Thecla begins by noting the increasing miniaturisation of computing technology, and the invisibility of the object which follows from this increases the visibility of our own presence and contributions. She frames this in a field of somatics: the felt experience of the self, through lived experiences, first-person methodologies, tension and movement, and a phenomenological understanding.

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Snurb — Wednesday 18 August 2004 18:26

Back to Wearables

Mobile and Wireless Technologies | Wireless | ISEA 2004 | Mobile Telephony | Wearable Technology | New Media Arts | Conferences |

We're now back to talking about wearable technologies, with a focus on embedded devices. Kelly Dobson from MIT makes the start. Some interesting work on human/machine feedback - e.g. a blender whose speed responds to the intensity of how a human operator growls at it. Some anthropomorphising of machines, or mechanomorphising of humans? She's also developed body extensions like a wearable bag called ScreamBody which a user can scream into (without being audible to anyone), thus recording their scream, and the later release the scream elsewhere, as well as HugBody (recording and recalling hugs).

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Snurb — Tuesday 17 August 2004 23:43

Last Wearables Round for Today

Mobile and Wireless Technologies | ISEA 2004 | Wearable Technology | Conferences |

On to the next panel session now. Not sure I'll catch all the panellists' names... Barbara Layne of Hexagram is speaking at the moment. (Also, I have only one more hour of battery power on the laptop!) Barbara has done a project called Fault Lines which converted seismograph data into fabrics. Other work includes weaving LEDs into fabrics - this seems somewhat more pedestrian than the work shown in other presentations, but I suppose we're talking proof-of-concept here...

Also, this raises the question of whether sufficient quantities of materials (e.g. small-gauge wires etc.) are currently available at all. Another interesting point: Cirque du Soleil is a partner of Hexagram, which should open pathways to some imaginative applications. Finally also a live demonstration of a garment with text scrolling across it (as I waited for my connecting flight in Singapore, Inspector Gadget was showing on the TV screens, featuring a hat with scrolling messages - a strange synchronicity...

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Snurb — Tuesday 17 August 2004 22:07

Wearable ISEA Panel

Mobile and Wireless Technologies | ISEA 2004 | Wearable Technology | Conferences |

After lunch, we've now moved on to the second ISEA panel on wearable technologies. Some interesting discussions over lunch, too - someone pointed out that interestingly no-one mentioned nanotechnology at all! I'm also wondering to what extent wearable technology will be accessories (in a fashion sense - wristbands, necklaces, etc.) rather than garments themselves.

Katherine Moriwaki is now talking about her project Recoil which embedded strong magnets in clothes so that the garments would snap to metallic objects and others' clothes (with magnets themselves) as they walk past them. Interesting to see that this is a common theme to both presentations so far: clothes that act autonomously, without the wearer's involvement (also in reaction to body heat changes and other environmental factors, for example)... She's on to ad-hoc mobile networking (or more precisely, "a multi-hop dynamic routing ad-hoc network") now. This is very interesting: people wearing these devices essentially become mobile nodes in the network. Also of interest is how people might use, adapt their movements to, or even try to cheat the network parameters. Her umbrella.net (with Jonah Brucker-Cohen) project also adds a visual footprint for the network since the umbrellas which are the WiFi devices change colour according to their network activity. We're now on to Susan Ryan speaking about the genderedness of wearable technology - from fetishistic depictions of female cyborgs to deliberately asexual wearable tech garments to highly macho combat-style gear. Some interesting images of implanted wearable tech as well - here, for example, your 'enhanced' thumb would become your credit card...

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Snurb — Tuesday 17 August 2004 19:10

Wearable Identity?

Mobile and Wireless Technologies | ISEA 2004 | Wearable Technology | Conferences |

Joanna Berzowska is the first keynote speaker, on wearable technology. An interesting term: tangible computing. Stresses the importance of actual wearability, which will likely require a certain softness to the technology.

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