Hertzian Space Starting
point for Fashion Victims is the investigation of the invisible
world behind mobile communication, referring particularly
to the space Fiona Raby and Tony Dunne define as Hertzian
Space.
Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby (2001) Design Noir: the Secret
Life of Electronic Objects. Birkhauser – Publishers
for Architecture.
Making the Invisible Visible
In Fashion Victims we chose clothing as the medium for making
this invisible world visible: we have designed a collection
of garments that react (respond and change) according to the
surrounding mobile phone calls.
Social Consequences of Mobile Communication Despite
the social consequences of mobile phone usage are vast and
complex, the act of making phone calls constitutes such an
intrinsic part of our lives that is getting more and more
invisible. Phone calls, in the basic physical form of radiations
and electricity, often surround us. We want to see what would
happen if our clothes — everyday objects that we carry
on our person — were able to display this presence.
Clothing Apparel
is the design medium we have chosen to "illustrate"
some of the social consequences of mobile communication. The
choice of this medium has to do with the already existing language
and codes of apparel, that we use in order to communicate, self-express
and position ourselves.
Raising awareness
Fahion
Victims is a critical design project. Fashion Victims subverts
the expected behaviour of an everyday object to create and
raise awareness about the subject of mobile communication.
By producing a physical result with every call, the mobile
phone is revealed in all of its pervasiveness and intrusiveness:
its tendency to violate the private space we potentially have
within the public context. Will your behaviors change once
you’ll carry this bag around? And what about the people
surrounding you? How many conversations will you be engaged
into?
Metaphor The
metaphor we have decided to use for visualizing mobile communication
comes directly from nature: clothes, as a second skin, react
to the environment and change in color. Skin
is the mirror of our health status displaying whether we feel
good or bad. Skin alteration can be as physical as psychological:
shame or embarrassment can make the skin blush, a knife can
make it bleed. Here,
as more and more phone calls are conducted in their surroundings,
the clothes progressively and permanently change color.
Form exploration
Driven by our desire of creating a visual language and not
to measure and display information, we avoided on purpose
digital and reversible form of display in favor of a more
qualitative representation. We have chosen to design a permanent
behavior rather than a temporary alarm. We want to show mobile
communications through a unique, organic, analogical pattern.
We knit technology inside the fabric, keeping in mind feasibility,
simplicity and creativity.
The First Prototypes
In our first design exploration we came up with three prototypes:
a shirt, a bag
and a hat. We chose simple
basic cuts and materials in order to avoid drawing the attention
away from the actual interaction and the process of reaction
and mutation.
The t-shirt While
embedding the channels we took under consideration the structure
of each garment. The elements we needed as part of our exploration
(the sensor, the channel), were considered part of the design
itself: instead of hiding them, we integrated them in the garments.
In particular, the brain of the garment (the electronics needed
to sense the surrounding mobile phone calls) is embedded in
the label, a very recognizable detail of the collection.
The
bag
As a second step we chose to develop the bag to a stage of a
working prototype. Although using ink, we made sure that the
bag, its mechanism and its reaction to mobile communication
will not contradict the garment’s initial function –
being a bag.
Crafting the interaction The
interaction was designed as such that will serve the bag and
its user both as functional and fashionable item. The user
has control over the interaction simply by being able to turn
it on or off. Once the bag has reached a point when the user
doesn’t want it to be stained anymore, the mechanism
can be pulled out; and the bag can be used a regular one.
In the picture: Bags
stained during the exhibition E-culture
Fair 2 in Amsterdam, October 2003.
Design as Research From
a design perspective this project has been thought in the context
of design as research: focus of the project is producing
tools potentially helpful in performing a research in the context
of mobile phone communication. As soon as the garment we decided
to design (a bag, specifically, is our first working prototype)
exists and works, it’s time to give it to real people
in the real world. So this bag becomes an exploratory
tool for understanding and mapping behaviors and attitudes in
the context of mobile phone usage.
Credits Fashion
Victims has been conceived and developed at the Interaction
Design Institute Ivrea, since Spring 2003, by:
Agnelli Davide Buzzini
Dario Drori
Tal
Thanks to:
Camille Norment, Cait Reas, Casey Reas, Massimo Banzi, Barbara
Busatta, Edoardo Brambilla, Yaniv Steiner and the whole IDII
community.
