future& skins& new& identities 2013
THESIS: pauli en ro uts ARTEZ: fa shi on stra te gy
introduction
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T HE BODY
Birth control, tattoos, braces, contact lenses, teeth whitening, deodorant, cosmetics; all non human additions to our body. How natural is our body nowadays actually? In this thesis, I will look at the developments in present time body manipulations in the context of fashion, and how this will develop in the future. In the framework of my Master studies at the ArtEZ Fashion Masters, this thesis will focus on answering the following stated main research question: “What are the future perspectives on our skin, how does it function in constructing identity and in what way will this skin relate to technology?” So far, there has been done quite some research on subjects as future fabrics, future fashion, wearables and possibilities in body manipulations. The manner in which this thesis distinguishes itself, is in the fact that it takes the skin as its doctrine. This creates an approach wherein wearables and body manipulations stand in closer relation to identity, and technology becomes more intimate. Therefore, the visions on our future skin which are presented in this thesis, are examined in relation to our identity. Also the evolution of the niche
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market of innovative fashion is understanding of technology and exploring the relation between the wearer and clothing. In order to answer the main research question it was of great importance word skin. In this thesis the term skin is interpreted as follows: “What we cover our body with. The layer we add to our body to offer us protection and to express ourselves.”
could also mean a textile, a cosmetic, a healing light we sit in and so on. The thesis is divided in two start by explaining how new technologies have become of big To do this, the chapter starts with theory of Koert van Mensvoort and Kevin Kelly, on what nature and technology mean to us in this contemporary society. With this knowledge the chapter continues on the different movements that of wearable technology. The division used here is reasoned
from analysing different examples of fashion design that incorporate technology. The examples also show how the different movements create new roles for the wearer. Exploring what the key to success is for these movements, it is necessary to understand how technology can change our relation to the body. This chapter therefor ends with a Hertenberger about incorporating technology in fashion and on a range of recent cross-design we will gain insight in how or skin technology. After exploring the outlines of innovation of our skin in a fashion context, we continue with my personal vision on our future skin. Based on both desk research; mainly consisting out of collecting research; mainly consisting out of interviews and observations from my everyday surroundings. I have distinguished three future perspectives, three trends. These perspectives explain how we use our skin to express identity. For all three trends we looked into the following research questions:
How does this trend appear in contemporary lifestyle? How did this trend arise from changes in society? What circumstances have opened our minds to accept this new trend entering our lives? By discussing these tendencies we gain insight in how our future skin is able to help us construct and express our identity in new ways. Future skins, new identities.
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In present day, there are a lot of technological developments in the
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I N A ND OUT OF TO U C H W IT H TEC HN OLOG Y a technologic skin is only natural
add to our body to dress ourselves. To gain insight into the chances of these techniques to become successful, we need to know what our contemporary attitude towards technology on and in our body is. In order to gain this insight, the discuss in this chapter reads: ‘what is our general understanding of technology nowadays?’. Continuing with the question: ‘which different kinds of movements are emerging in this niche and how does the wearer relate to these new types of fashion?’. The last section of this chapter will outline the issue of new relations with our skin in a future perspective. ‘In and out of touch with technology’ is about observations that have revealed to me that we are putting our nature in technology and we are discovering of this statement is explained in the
A t echnologic s kin i s o n l y n atura l There is a mainly sceptic attitude towards technology, both in fashion or in our body. Whenever the idea of adding technology to our clothing or
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in our body is brought to attention, there is most of the time a mainly detained reaction. This attitude was also traceable in a discussion between me, fellow students and technology, thats was organised by Piem Wirtz at V2 Instititute for Unstable Media (2012. pers.comm). A reaction by one of the students was: “Although technology is “hot” right now and everyone wants to be seen with the latest Apple device, no one wants to wear an Apple jacket” What can be concluded from this reaction, is that it shows how fashion and technology are experienced as separate worlds. The student relates technology to a computer and fashion to a jacket. Wearable technology is seen as a computer in a jacket. The area overlapping these two worlds is not taken in consideration, while this seems to be the area where wearable technology wants to position itself. Another element that can be concluded from this reaction of the student, is the taboo he feels in wearing technology. The student shows resistance against the idea of wearable technology by arguing why consumers won’t wear garments including technology
instead of thinking about why they should want to wear it. The student did not want to put the subject in a context of the intimacy of wearing technology on the body. It seems to feel aberrant to him to experience technology in textiles as something we would want to dress the body with. Technology is not associated with what feels natural to us, such as wearing a garment like cotton or wool and by that it is often too eagerly dismissed for being used as something we work with in the fashion industry. In order to analyze this statement of the student and its accuracy, Koert van Mensvoort’s theory on our notions of nature and technology is explained below. Koen van Mensvoort (2012) goes in detail about our contemporary view and understanding of the concepts of nature and technology. He states that our current idea of nature is too traditional. When we think of nature most of us will think of green grass and woods, our city parks and trips to the beach. While actually most of the grass and trees are grown and cultivated by man and machine. Cultivated meaning unnatural. Natural nature is the uncontrolled nature like the weed growing in between garden tiles.
While we are cultivating our nature, transforming it into an unnatural environment, the technological driven industry has created products that we now cannot control anymore and start to have a life on its own, like algorithms. The product of technology thus now has the character of what nature used to have; something that lives on itself and is hard to control by man. Reasoning from his theory it is a misunderstanding of us to experience technology as unnatural, it might just be actually more natural
The product of technology thus now has the character of what nature used to have; something that lives on itself and is hard to control by man. as what we consider to be nature. Once more returning to the reaction of the student, there is one thing left to remark about the argument in relation to the contemporary attitude towards technology entering the about technology as if it is a trend, saying technology is “hot� right now. This perception of technology is anything but right if we approach technology from a historical point of view.
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Kevin Kelly writes in his essay on the world without technology (2010):
chipped stone scrapers 2.5 million years ago to give themselves claws. By about 250,000 years ago they devised crude techniques for Technology-assisted hunting, versus tool-free scavenging, is equally old.” What he says here is, that in fact the stone scraper is technology as well. It is a tool, an invention by man. From an evolutionary point of view, we have survived as species because we have made tools. This has evolved through time into more advanced technology, but technology has and will always be a part of human nature and is thus not to be understood as a trend.
Technology has and always will be a part of human nature and is this not to be understood as a trend. Our attitude towards technology in fashion doesn’t seem to be very open-minded, not because we don’t want to accept technology on or in our skin but simply because we need a different understanding to open our minds to these innovations. This shift in slowly accepting and
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understanding new techniologies seems to be occurring at this moment. The fact that the issue of our understanding of technology and nature is becoming a topic of contemporary discussion, for anthropologists and institutions like V2, means there is a shift in the current notion we have on nature and technology. The next subchapter will continue with some examples of new technologies that are being used in fashion. They represent a scope of (bio) technological techniques, which can nowadays be used to create a new skin. The structure of the chapter is constructed by providing an overview of how these new techniques are giving direction to new movements in this innovative niche. The main focus is on how they all seem to create other relations between wearer and cloth.
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I N A ND OUT OF TO U C H W IT H TE CH NO LO GY
Three techn o -l o g ic s o f a pp roachi ng o u r n e w ski n While examining a possible technological future for our skin, we can distinct different sorts of technologies in dressing the body. In this thesis the different technologies have been divided into three different movements as follows:
provides the wearer with insight in his health or environment.
three techno-logics of approaching our new skin.
intervening with technology in a way it becomes a showpiece rather then a everyday garment. animal or human’s own matter, or biomimic textiles. These three movements will be explained in detail with examples and discuss its effect on us by answering the question; what happens to the identity of the person wearing these types of cloth?
Sm a r t t e x t i l e In this thesis smart textile resembles fabrics that generate data. An example of the use of these textiles is the pollution-detecting T-shirt by Nien Lam and Sue Ngo (image 1). An image representing the lungs
in the human body is sewed on the T-shirt and changes of its colour when the wearer is situated in an environment with a high rate of air pollution. Because the cloth is gathering data to inform the owner, the relation between the wearer and its garment changes from their traditional role here. Instead of being the wearer of a cloth as, you become the user of the garment (Ryan, 2012). This conversion from owner to user of our belongings is not unfamiliar to us and origins in our contemporary data society. This product in this case clothing transforming a wearer into a user is what is called a ‘metaproduct’.
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A metaproduct is a product that consists out of physical elements and web elements. The physical elements can have a sensorial function serving as input for the web elements, after which the web elements perform a certain action, such as storage or editing (Hazenberg and Huisman, 2011: 22). A range of metaproducts is becoming everyday life, like Nike+: A sensor placed on the bottom of running shoes that is able to communicate to the runner (image 2). The iPod the user listens to while running provides the runner with information on speed, time and distance. Another important origin the material is derived from is interest and desire of creating a healthier body. This can also be read from the example of Nike+; the combination of data generating products and improving health seems to be a good combination, since the products is a major success. By the time of March 2013 it was already used by 25,956,259 Nike customers per day (Nike, 2013).
We ar ab l e s Secondly there are the wearables, which include a lot of technological aspects which tend to present the wearer as a ‘hybrid’; a human intervening with the technological (Myers, 2012). A bit old but wellknown example would be the work of Hussein Chalayan and to name a piece, his video dress (image 3). The wearables are programmed to actively change appearance,
the way we traditionally use our garments. We are used to express our identity through cloth but when a wearable has a character of it’s own which draws strong attention to it, the wearer becomes its medium. The wearer becomes subjected to the wearable, instead of being an individual with a certain taste. This means the wearer isn’t autonomous but is always absorbed in a network of complex and mobile relations and the identity is always on a node of communication circuits (Smelik, 2006: 155). It is safe to say that this type of innovative fashion has a different origin and market then the other two technologies that are discussed. These are the show pieces, originating from technological development in devices. They become performer
pieces belonging in the art industry of fashion, as argued by students of the ArtEZ Fashion Masters (Wirtz 2012). A new generation of haute couture perhaps.
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B io(mi mic) co u t u re Bio-couture seems to be a lot different then the other two movements. It is about materials produced out of animal or humans own matter or is based on it. In example, scientist have been able Seemingly in contradiction with smart textile and wearables this is thus not a material we understand to be technological. Though there has been a lot of technique involved to derive such material. The balance between what is natural to us and the use of technique is just different then the previous discussed materials. An explanation of this difference in balance would be the origin of the movement. The roots of the new materials lay in the industry of sustainability instead of in data society or technological devices.
When we look at the three new types of materials discussed, we can conclude all three movement create different roles for the wearer. The chance for biocouture to become successful as a consumer product is quiet big in comparison to smart textiles and wearables. Firstly because there is difference in
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origin. Bio-couture is derived from a big need for sustainable material with the dramatic decrease in raw materials. (Global resources stock check, 2012) Secondly because it initiated by looking at our nature and after this developers proceeded with getting technology involved instead of the other way around. And last and most importantly the role of the wearer remains being the wearer. When we look at the three new types of materials discussed, we can conclude all three movements create different roles for the wearer. Designers should be aware of this issue and think about the relation they want to create for the wearer, while designing new materials like traditional fashion, without these new innovations has its variety like womenswear, sports, outdoor etc. This new movement in fashion has its own diversity. Recognizing this diversity and including it in the design process is a challenge for the future that would help wearable technology to mature as an industry in everyday fashion. How Nike was able to recognise smart textile as a metaproduct is a good example of making wearable technology its place in the wearable technology
branch of fashion as a do-it- yourself well-being product. In the context of creating a new diversity for this innovative fashion industry this could mean the logic in fashion shows would change from, in example; womenswear autumn/ winter to womenswear well-being.
position in relation to fashion offers the possibility of a whole new fashion industry to exist next to the traditional fashion industry. Another possibility it creates are the several new interactions between wearer and cloth. But what new relations can arise when this technology on our body reacts on the body itself?
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I N A ND OU T OF TO U C H W IT H T ECH NO LO GY new relations with our skin
New technologies are being introduced in fashion, creating new sorts of interactions with the wearer and its cloth. At the same time there is a tension in our understanding of nature and technology. What will the combination of these two tendencies offer us in the future when it comes to relations between our skin and technology? The following passage is about how our body and its interaction with technology is changing.
O u t of tou ch Brainwaves composing music; software has been specially developed to convert thoughts into elaborate compositions that actually mimic human composed pieces (Chen, 2012). Temporary tattoos that could enable the wearer to control machines with his mind; the linked with brain waves and can communicate wirelessly (Hutchings, 2013). A toy helicopter controlled by nothing but brainwaves; when you concentrate, up it goes, when you mentally relax, it comes back down again (Webster, 2012). The brain is ‘hot’ and increasingly neurologic interference in the brain
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is used in contemporary design. And the designers are not alone in envisioning this as a future
are interconnected with life trough
Where the deceased Colter Stevens connected with life through his brain and goes back into time via the memories of other people (Smelik, 2012). But are visions like this, where we loose track of our bodies in any way reliable scenario’s for our future? Not that much according to media and performance artist Anja Hertenberger (2013. pers. Comm.). I asked her about her thoughts on the origin of the desire to incorporate technology in fashion and if maybe she thought it originated from our desire for immortality. She answered with: “I’m not consumed with immortality, I think we are bringing our body back, the relation between our body and mind in harmony, coming together again.” What she says about bringing our body back made me realize technology has caused us to move away from our natural selves. We stopped using our skin as a sense,
which is actually really important to keep on using because it can provide us with a lot of information about our health, emotions and environment. In other words; we have fallen out of touch with our touch, but we will be back in touch again soon..
In t o u c h This gap of our unused sense of touch, created by technology is technologic product: the smart textiles, discussed earlier on in this chapter. What I mean by will explain itself with the example of shirts that provide biofeedback to its wearer to improve sports performances (appendix 1). In this shirt, we can see how technology is making its turn from us using our computer to gain formation or to communicate into the computer using us to gain information or to communicate. The body is becoming the interface. Years, we have been sitting bent over our computers behind a desk. We gained weight and got wrist problems because of moving too little and are suffering RSI. Obviously we are having an unnatural interaction with our devices. But this shirt is a computer as well, one that doesn’t cause physical problems but improves our physics. Other
examples of this presage of new ways of interacting with computers are pyjamas monitoring our sleep (appendix 2) and a belt curing back pain (appendix 3). Also the recently introduced Google glasses provide our natural way of looking with an extra dimension (appendix 4). Another great example is music composed by producing sounds with your throat and mouth instead of clicking buttons (appendix 5). Our body is no longer the user of the computer, but the interface of it.
We gained weight and are suffering RSI. Obviously we are having an unnatural interaction with our devices. C o n c l u si o n Our general understanding of technology nowadays is that it is an unnatural phenomenon, while if we look at it from a evolutionary point of view, technology is best understood as a natural phenomenon. Although we don’t always seem to be very open-minded towards adding technology in fashion, wearable technology is on the way of becoming an autonomous fashion industry. Technology on our skin knows three big movements in this niche industry; wearables, smart textiles and bio(mimic) couture.
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These movements introduce new roles for the wearer as medium or user. By incorporating knowledge of these new roles for the wearer in the design process, a new fashion industry with its own varieties of markets is being established. Technology on our skin in terms of cloth creates new relations to the wearer, but when adding technology on the skin something else happens as well. The way our body and our skin as a sense interacts with the technology is also a subject of matter. We are learning to create devices that are designed for our body to function in its natural way, instead of creating devices which we have to adjust to our natural habits to. We have made a little detour in evolution. We went from walking on four limps to walking up straight, onto a bended posture. But we are learning to stand op straight again. Technologic innovations on and under the skin is becoming a fashion industry of its own. It is a industry that is still in search of its form and its acceptance. This acceptance is recognisable in the trends I see in how we dress and manipulate our skin, which will be discussed in the next chapter.
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MAKING S E N S E OU T OF NEW SK I NS The Alchemist
the industry of wearable technology is maturing in an autonomous fashion industry. How technology is changing, and especially how this is creating new opportunities for us to relate, communicate and decorate to our bodies. With the knowledge of what is emerging in the industry I now continue with three perspectives on our future skin. How are we going to use these innovations, what do we desire our skin to be like in the future, and how are these trends establishing in our lifestyles? Every trend is explained by how we can recognise the movement from signals in our contemporary society, what new feelings and desires we can perceive and what the catalyst of this new mindset has been. The selection of which trends would be of most importance to discuss, was a matter of the trend being able to answer the question; is it relatable to personal identity? Each trend is thus as well a peek into the future of constructing and expressing identity. Future skins, new identities. The research for these perspectives is structured from a mixture of references to literature, current events and examples from popular culture. It is mainly aimed at he design-minded reader, for it is
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intended to offer a grounded starting point for a practical design process. By choosing this way of positioning a trend research: as a fundament for a design process rather then an end result, the role of me as a trend researcher is different in comparison to traditional fashion forecasters. Instead positioning myself as a storyteller type of trend forecaster by of presenting prognoses of colours, pattern and silhouettes I like to see myself as a prototyper. By prototyper I mean someone who actively participates in presenting a future scenario, instead of passively telling about it by translating a future perspective into a prototype product in cooperation with designers, researchers and scientists. The decision to distance myself from the traditional trend forecasting practice is derived from the idea that due to presentations in expensive books and utopian presentations majesty makes it hard for clients to incorporate the shared information. By making the translation of a future perspective into a prototype part of the presentation the majesty turns into opening minds and actively showing possibilities. The prototype that has been created in result of the research presented in this chapter will be introduced in the conclusion, after three future perspectives on the skin are introduced.
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the deformist
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MAKING S E N S E OUT OF NEW SK I NS The Deformist
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The Deform ist Id e n t i t y & d i ve r s i t y The audience rate for the Paralympics has doubled since the last four year (Volkskrant, 2012). What has alternated since then what caused this change? UK’s channel 4 reveals a change of mindset with their introduction video of the paralympic sporters which was titled ‘Meet the superhumans’. (Channel 4 Paralympics - Meet the Superhumans (Annotated Version, 2012) A few years ago the paralympic sporters were ranked under the olympic sporters but they have transformed into being the ‘superhumans’. How has our attitude towards the deformed body changed, what are the roots of this new attitude towards the manipulated skin and how is it affecting popular culture?
Si g n a l s f ro m cont em po ra r y so c i e t y
several scenario’s created in reaction to the idea of the deformed body. Adding technology to the body offers a potential for a hybrid form to originate, like a third sex. (Smelik, 2012) This third sex has populair culture under the name
Gaultier (appendix 8) and in campaigns of i.e. Alexander Wang. (appendix 9) presents a future scenario for our fashion identity. Introducing a new sex means new ways of expressing diversity. Diversity, just like any other personal information is used to create Wijnberg, R, 2012). This broadened diversity in relation to unique identity isn’t only explored by the third sex. Also albino’s are becoming culture, modelling in campaigns for brands such as Karen Walker and Givenchy. Their skin, hair and eyes are very unique in comparison with that of others. Instead of experiencing albino’s as outcast we now see beauty in their difference and with accepting the outcasted looks we create more diversity in identity.
N ew fe e li n g s a n d d e si re s To gain insight in how this new tolerance has arised we take a closer look at sports. There is a new attitude towards people with a handicap and protheses. A new tolerance and even an adoration. These new feelings are traceable especially in sports. When we look
at image 4 we can see an athlete with sports tape to give the body support at places its weak. This tape used to be skin coloured to hide it. But were athletes used to hide the injuries they have, now the sports tapes are becoming art works. The bright coloured tapes are prominent in their appearance. its like we are proud of the tape enstrengthening our body and there is a tolerance towards the defects we physically have. Also we have started to fetishize the idea of protheses, for the reason it creates a stronger body then the natural body that nonhandicapped have (De avonden, 2012). The Paralympic athletes aren’t interpreted less strong anymore, but more strong. This desire of the body to become postnatural strong can be recognised in more recent sports events. In example in the recent disclosure about doping use in cycle racing by Lance Armstrong and many of his colleagues. (Friele, 2013) From my perspective the fact this many cyclist used doping was because they felt there was not another way for them to be able to compete. A conclusion from this can be that, what we demand and what the expectations of the body are at this point in time have become postnatural. We desire a beyond human strong body and we are no longer
hiding how we create this body.
We have started to fetishize the idea of protheses, for the reason it creates a stronger body then the natural body. C at al yst o f th e n e w min d se t Now we have taken a look at how our attitude towards the deformed body has changed on a society level we are going to discuss what made us open up our minds in order to be able to create this new attitude. An awareness of new found possibilities creates the foundation for our mindset to change, and this change, which is very notable in sports, seems to be rooted in the medical industry. The prototypes of organ printers are in the making (Anthony Atala: Anthony Atala: Printing a human kidney, 2011) and growing skin from stem cells is as well becoming a possibility (appendix 11). These achievements open doors for us to think about the manufacturable body as becoming a conceivable future. We fantasise about ways we can use these new tools to create our contemporary ideal body. A manufacturable body
culture to medical culture?
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Fu t u re s k i n & d i ve r si t y i n id entity Outcasts have become inspirations; inspirations of how we can possibly create more diversity in image and identity in the future. New techniques emerging in the medical industry have opened our minds towards new ideal bodies and the fantasies drawn from this have already set new standards to our body. A stronger body, which can only be achieved by becoming postnatural. In the context of how this can lead to a prototype, innovating fashion, or the fashion body, this means there is space to think about new forms and, more exciting: new dress-logics. Translating this into ideas of possible prototypes, jewellery could become more of a cloth functioning as a form that could be worn under clothing to create new silhouettes or more extreme measures could become more excepted like injecting saline under the skin to create temporary deformation. And if the androgyn is already introduced and recognised as a ‘third sex’ maybe we can also
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future? It sounds rather alienating and unpleasant but maybe if we create a process to tan it just like we do with leather it could be the next fashion material? All ideas we might need some time to adjust to, no surprise that in reaction to this a counter trend in relation to our skin arises, The Indigents.
and lives? Also, could skin in any fashion context become a material to work with if we could print it in the IM AG E : 4