Wearables

[Jaki Levy]

i just saw this post today:
http://www.flytip.com/blog/?p=1531

i'm looking to compile resources for wearables + wearable tech.

is there a wearables group/focus on here?

anyone working with wearables?

[Sarah Kettley]

Hi Jaki,
I work with wearables and can suggest a couple of links - XS Labs at http://www.xslabs.net/ and Moondial at http://www.moondial.com/. Fashioning Technology by Syuzi Pakhchyan is an easy DIY way in to some projects - see http://www.sparklab.la/.
My own work is more informed by contemporary jewellery as a discipline and I'm interested in design methodologies, particularly in craft theory. My thesis is on Scribd at http://www.scribd.com/people/view/1478920-sarahkettley, and describes the development of a suite of wirelessly networked jewellery.
Otherwise, so much to learn. I am with Nottingham Trent's Technical Textiles research project tat the moment and linking with performance and dance is definitely something we want to pursue.

[Johannes Birringer]

hallo
nice to read this/Sarah/

and you might be interested in a new piece that just went up (and was recently premiered first in France, I think) at the CYNETart 2008 festival in Dresden Hellerau, the choreographic-installation "passage" by the Canadian group kondition pluriel. It is a work that links dancer (wearing a "wearable" sensorial costume with several sensors) to environment (where the outputs and feedbacks are visualized and sonified) to visitors/audiences invited into the space and into direct physical contact with the performer.

I quote from the program (i was invited to host a conversation with media artist/programmer Martin Kusch, who co-directs kondition pluriel along with Marie-Claude Poulin) - since this might interest others who work in this hybrid design field of mixing dance and installation as well as audioviosual reactive / augmented environments with senors technologies worn and acticated by performance in participation with visitors:

(this is taken from the CYNET website which directs you to our forum, which was called
PostMe New ID)

MARIE-CLAUDE POULIN
& MARTIN KUSCH
2007 — kondition pluriel

A hybrid of interactive installation and performance artistic direction: Martin Kusch, Marie-Claude Poulin, choreography: Marie-Claude Poulin, contributions to movement research: Benoît Lachambre, Dominique Porte, media environment/visual performance: Martin Kusch, composition and sound performance: Alexandre St-Onge, dramaturgy: Armando Menicacci, dance/performance: Catherine Tardif, installation: Martin Kusch in collaboration with Éric Belley, costumes: Linda Brunelle, lighting and technical direction: Éric Belley, sensor system: Technology Playgroup, max
consultant: Alexandre Burton

With the support of: Canada Council for the Arts (CAC), Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec (CALQ), Conseil des Arts de Montréal (CAM) sowie and Vertretung der Regierung von Québec, Berlin.

A performance-installation project with one dancer, created by the performance production group kondition pluriel. It is a practical research into the possibilities created by blurring the boundaries between active performers and passive spectators, and exploring varying states of intimacy and proximity, with the goal of creating an artwork that oscillates between interactive installation and performance. The project incorporates dance performance, choreography, improvisation and a constantly evolving, dynamic and responsive media environment. This media platform is generated by continuous live input from multiple users – the spectators – via a series of wireless sensors attached and distributed both on the costume of a dancer/performer, and throughout the installation environment.

The mixed format of passage, an inbetween of interactive media design, dance performance and improvisation, creates a new model of dance-performance, which triggers social interaction, questions the spectator on his relationship to his own body, addresses his quality of listening and invites and stimulates the spectator to participate in a playful experience where he finds himself at once object and subject.

***************

i will probably write a review of the installation soon, and then post here or on the dance tech net. ciao.