Category Archives: etextiles

encryption dress

with all the talk of data retention and vintage (clothes) stores & work stuff this week, I had a great dream about an encryption dress this morning. I couldn’t find anything in the store that I liked, then finally chose a dress & said this’ll do. turns out it had an encryption chip in it. we couldn’t find the pricelist card for it — flat, vertical cards covered in plastic frames — sort of like house listings in the window of the real estate offices. had to scan through heaps of them – layers and layers. & seems to be waterproof also as the dress becomes swimwear/togs too (changes). lots of dream spent on adventure looking for it. turns out it cost $100K due to software licence. but they waived it & I got to keep the dress & encrypted all communications from then on. I was trying to work out how it worked without a keyboard to enter passphrase. but it was new tech. touch was all that was needed. I was also worried about the chip being so close to my heart (physical location) but it was proven to be safe to wear. good dream. chip was like a square button, sewn into the fabric. gather & press to activate. the encryption dress and chip were waterproof too because at some points in the dream it turned into togs/swimmers and I was in the water, I think when I was looking for the pricecards.

maybe it means I should get back to working on the flora gps test – flora’s working, & gps  arrived recently

Coded Cloth – reSkin Wearable Technology Lab

reSkin Wearable Technology Lab & Coded Cloth was a lab + exhibition showing wearable technology projects in 2007/8. It was curated by Melinda Rackham.

http://www.anat.org.au/reskin

http://www.subtle.net/pdf/MRLEON.pdf (PDF) describes the background of the events and has examples of the work.

“In summer 2007, in order to facilitate such interdisciplinary experimentation in Australia,
Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) initiated the reSkin Wearable Technol-
ogy Lab in collaboration with Craft Australia and the Australian National University School of
Art. Twenty-one media and sound artists; programmers; jewelers; and object, textile and fash-
ion designers immersed themselves into an intensive three-week research and development
environment with six facilitators .”

“One of the many outcomes of reSkin was a physical exhibition titled Coded Cloth, held
at the Samstag Museum of Art, University of South Australia, in Adelaide (29 October–
19 December 2008). The exhibition drew from artists and designers who attended reSkin
along with practitioners whose work combined age-old craftsmanship with innovation. In
this Leonardo Gallery, we see a sample of that exhibition, wherein artists used traditional
textile practices such as weaving, stitching, embroidery, printing and dyeing. However, the
different electro-mechanical or biological properties of their materials produce aesthetically
charming and complex works that have both practical properties and surprising functionality.”

below was the callout for submissions/participation (2006 emails) – I remember reading about it:

ANAT MEDIA RELEASE
For immediate release 1 September 2006

reSkin
ANAT Media Lab on Wearable Computing

January 15 – February 4, 2007
Australian National University, Canberra
http://www.anat.org.au/reskin

About reSkin
The Australian Network for Art and Technology (ANAT) is pleased to
announceits Summer Media Lab. reSkin will be facilitated by renowned
media artistsincluding ELISE CO (USA), JOANNA BERZOWSKA (Canada) and
ALISTAIR RIDDELL (Australia). reSkin will be an intensive three-week
workshop focussing on wearable technology, embracing the skill-based
practices of object, jewellery, fashion design and media art.

SPECIALIST WORKSHOP FACILITATORS:
Stephen Barass (Australia)
Nikita Pashenkov (USA)

reSkin facilitators will be working with artists including jewellers,
object designers, textile artists, fashion designers and media
practitioners. Together they will research, develop and rapid
prototype sensor, time based and reactive clothing, jewellery, shoes,
bags, personal environmental and device designs – anything wearable
and technologically integrated. The Lab will focus on research and
development, experimentation, collaboration and project development.

Outcomes
reSkin will end with WearNow a one-day forum of critical dialogue
looking at our wearable futures, and a special publication examining
emerging practices in depth. An exhibition of wearables that will
include outcomes from the lab is scheduled for 2008.

Who Can Apply
reSkin is open to Australian and International artists and designers
with at least 3 years of practice in the fields of jewellery and
object design, textile design, fashion design, media arts, hybrid art
and other related disciplines.

How to Apply
ANAT is currently calling for applications for reSkin. Application
guidelines including further details on the Lab, facilitators, and
public outcomes can be downloaded from the reSkin website at:
www.anat.org.au/reskin

Further information
Alexandra Gillespie
Project Manager reSkin
ANAT Media Arts Lab 2006

Dr Melinda Rackham
ANAT Executive Director

The ANAT New Media Lab 2006 reSkin is supported by the Visual Arts
and Craft Strategy, an initiative of the Australian, State and
Territory Governments. reSkin project partners are Australian
National University School of Art, Centre for New Media Arts (ANU),
Australian National Museum and Craft Australia.

red velvet stitched circuit — blinking led

red velvet stitched circuit — blinking led

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtxsERq2JpI

testing the conductive thread. it’s conductive, hurrah

I left the hoop on to stabilise it a bit whilst I had it connected to the computer. it’s the tutorial on adafruit site, though I modified their circuit pattern into the circles & didn’t have the clips to test it. checked it with my multimetre instead after stitching. one thing to remember is once the usb cable’s connected it tends to flip the fabric. I need to play more & see if it really is now ‘programmed’ (I think so) ie will it run without the computer if I power it by battery/something else. but yeah, no soldering, only stitching. have to think of something else besides leds now – they seem to be the “hello world” of wearable tech

 

it’s an adafruit flora processor + neo pixel v2 led & conductive thread. I bought some other things like a light/colour detector & flexible solar panel & more leds. will think of something to try them out