Artist Kate Hartman uses wearable electronics to explore how we communicate, with ourselves and with the world. In this quirky and thought-provoking talk, she shows the “Talk to Yourself Hat”, the “Inflatable Heart”, the “Glacier Embracing Suit”, and other unexpected devices.

ISEA 2011 presents Open Culture + Wearables Skillshare with Valérie Lamontagne and Mika Satomi :: September 18, 2011; 9:00 am - 6:00 pm :: Karakoy Communication Center Terrace, Sabanci University, Orhanli, Tuzla 34956 Istanbul.

We propose to organize a workshop focused on skillsharing between wearables technologists and the local craft-based Istanbul textiles community. We are interested in exploring the potential for the cross-pollination of traditional with technology-based textiles techniques via the one-on-one meeting, discussion and demonstration of practices that a skillshare workshop can provide. Specifically, we are interested in sharing craft and skills in wearable technology practices and believe that the Istanbul community working in traditional crafts practices has a lot to teach us. Continue reading

[Image: Assa Ashuach's "My Trousers"] A New Performativity: Wearables and Body-Devices by Danielle Wilde:

ABSTRACT: In their relatively short history, wearables and body-devices have evolved from cyborg-like extensions and utilitarian solutions aimed at enhancing efficiency, to poetic representations and experiences that give form to the imagination through indirect and abstract transformations. These new body-artefacts, in particular those that directly consider the body’s capacity for movement, afford a new kind of performativity that is as much experiential as it is representational. By engaging in an embodied, pre-verbal discourse such works encourage observer empathy in a way that shifts from traditional performance forms such as dance and theatre. Observer can be interactor and roles of performer and audience are blurred or no longer apply. Continue reading

Live streaming today at 2:00 pm EST.

Rambler Shoes from ricardo O'nascimento on Vimeo.

“Rambler, developed by Ricardo O”Nascimento and Tiago Martins, is a critical take on near obsessive microblogging habits and elicits reflection on the personal nature, amount and usefulness of information generated everyday through blogging and social platforms such as Twitter. Continue reading

Micro-Nutrient Couture by Emily Crane (2010). Continue reading

Designer Suzanne Lee shares her experiments in growing a kombucha-based material that can be used like fabric or vegetable leather to make clothing.

May 2011 on –empyre soft-skinned space: Wearable Technologies: Cross-disciplinary Ventures with Janis Jefferies (UK), Valérie Lamontagne (CA), Ashley Ferro-Murray (US), Sabine Seymour (US), Susan Elizabeth Ryan (US), Danielle Wilde (AU/FR), Sarah Kettley (UK), Lucy Dunne (US) :: Moderated by Renate Ferro (US) and Tim Murray (US).

During the month of May 2011, -empyre soft-skinned space will be featuring a discussion of wearable technologies, means through which technology augments or enables the body in interacting with the surrounding environment. The integration of wearables that augment the body with technological capabilities permeate our diverse worlds from entertainment to the military. Continue reading

Test_Lab: Clothing Without Cloth — Material Explorations in the Field of Fashion & Technology, curated by Valérie Lamontagne, featuring: Emily Crane, Christien Meindertsma, Carole Collet, Grado Zero Espace, Pauline van Dongen, Freedom of Creation :: May 26, 2011; 8:00 - 11:00 pm :: V2_, Eendrachtsstraat 10, Rotterdam + streamed live.

Material culture in clothing and fashion has always been linked to technology — from looms to sewing machines to the processes of harvesting raw materials and transforming them into ‘cloth’. However, the concept and materiality of textile is being contested with new technical practices which subvert conventional expectations of what cloth should be. Continue reading

Electronic Textiles and Reactive Garments — Workshop led by Joanna Berzowska :: June 12 - 18, 2011 :: Shakerag Workshops, 290 Quintard Road, Sewanee, TN.

This five-day workshop introduces participants to the idea of electronic textiles and to the principles of soft-circuit design through hands-on demos and experimentation. Each participant or team will build a pressure-sensitive squeezable “soft switch” and create an interactive textile structure (either sculptural or wearable) with stitched pressure sensors and beaded light-emitting components.

Over the five days, each participant or team will brainstorm ideas for reactive surfaces, using existing project ideas that they will bring into the studio. Continue reading