Issue00 introduction to digital jewellery and my research

Jewellery is one of the oldest forms of body adornment and has frequently been held as a symbol of status and a way of augmenting beauty. People have been wearing jewellery for ages. Attaching stones and metals to the ears, and hanging necklaces around the throat and wrist, using a variety of materials ranging from bones to diamonds, developed into a set of cultural and behavioural patterns that have barely changed in thousands of years (Goffman,1958)The terrain started to change recently, in the 50s, with The New Jewellery Movement.

Contemporary jewellery practices change our expectations and the way we interpret jewellery. They extended concepts of jewellery by reinterpreting old material processes and by commenting on issues of wearability, value and relationships with the body and others they pushed the boundaries of what jewellery can be. But, they broaden the field to that extend that jewellery could be anything as soon as it is driven from an artistic expression.

“JEWELLERY IS QUITE OPEN ABOUT ITSELF, IT HAS BEEN A WIDESPREAD LIBERATION OF JEWELLERY; ITS DEFINITION IS WIDENING. IT IS NO LONGER SUBSERVIENT TO THE LAW OF THE HIGHEST PRICE NOR TO THAT OF BEING USED IN ONLY ONE WAY SUCH AS FOR A PARTY OR SACRED OCCASION: JEWELLERY HAS BECOME DEMOCRATIC”.

BARTHES, 2013 IF JEWELLERY CAN BE ANYTHING, THEN HOW CAN WE DEFINE WHAT JEWELLERY IS? ADAMSON, 2007 In the beginning of this centrury, a new term was introduced that open new expressive possibilities for jewellers; the term digital jewellery. Although, we might have expected to be the new field of contemporary jewellery practice, this new field was dominated mainly by sofware engineers, and big companies.

In 2001, Miller introduced digital jewellery as an intuitive interface. Worn throughout the day, digital jewellery could connect the user anytime, anywhere to information, business, and communication services. Sixteen years later iwatch, Fitness trackers, wearable monitoring devices are in adundance. Such example of digitally worn objects offers a limited interpretation of what digital jewellery could be (Wallace, 2008), limited to the aesthetics of archetype jewellery and its functions. Although digital and wearable technologies gave new possibilities for

“ THE TECHNOLOGIES HAVE BEEN PLACED IN APPROPRIATE PLACES IN THE JEWELLERY AND ON THE BODY: A SPEAKER

BY THE EAR IN AN EARRING OR EARPIECE, MICROPHONE BY THE MOUTH IN A NECKLACE OR PIN, DISPLAY IN GLASSES, WATCH, OR BRACELET, INPUT AND CONTROL AT YOUR FINGERTIPS IN A TRACKPOINT RING.” MINER, 2001 JEWELLERY OFTEN FUNCTIONS AS A SYMBOL OF SELF, AS A SIGNIFIER OF ASPECTS OF IDENTITY, AS A CONDUIT TO TRANSPORT US TO OTHER TIMES, PLACES AND PEOPLE, AND AS A RECEPTACLE FOR OUR FEELINGS OF THAT ASSOCIATED ‘OTHER’. WALLACE, 2008

jewellery, it is widely presented as convenient location for digital components. A small group of jewellers explored the emotional significant role of digital worn objects. Their research and artistic practice was centred on personal significance and grounded on reasons people wear jewellery in the first place. The expectation of digital jewellery becomes a debate between jewellers and practitioners outside the field.

Far beyond the function of jewellery as a piece of adornment, a location for technology, and a means for artistic practice, jewellery has a unique value associated with its personal and emotional significance. More than other object in craft and art it reflects portions of one’s personality and a way for people to express themselves and connect with others in an intimate way. Several studies have been carried out investigating why people wear jewellery (Goffman, 1959; Ahde-Deal, 2013; Rana, 2014) and they all reveal its symbolic value in our lives. Margan Unger (2013) refers to the main function of jewellery as that it connects us with people who lived before us or are living with us. Ahde (2008) refers to jewellery as a physical representation of memories, as a provocateur of emotions, which connects us to past experiences and relationships. Thus, pieces of jewellery are more than objects; they are connectors (Ahde, 2013).

Cheung (2006) emphasizes that jewellery only completes its status when it carries a personal significance for the wearer.

She introduced the term jewellery-to-be to refer to those intimate objects awaiting for personal meaning. Aligned with her understanding of the term, I propose to experience and understand digital jewellery as jewellery - to - be. I invite designers, jewellers, creative technologies not to aim for the design pieces of digital jewellery, but for the creation of bespoke objects that take into account the whole person and have the potential to become digital jewellery in people’s lives through the interaction. In this context, digital jewellery can be seen as an extension of the meaningful and personal world of jewellery by opening new ways of exploring the social potential of jewellery and its ability to support our sense of self over time. Digital jewellery takes advantage of existing advances in wearable and digital technologies, but stay faithful to the values behind the piece and its emotional significance.

In my explorations, I am interested in the collision between jewellery and interaction design that goes far beyond the artistic expression of wearable technologies and the expressive manifestation of contemporary jewellery artists, to the meaning that these objects conveyed by its wearer and its experiential quality to connect with ourselves, significant other and intimate places. Although digital jewellery offers the space to interrogate issues of personal significance, research on this issue is limited. This issue attempt to strengthen this area.