April 2009 Blog Posts (25)

Moritz Waldemeyer's Heartbeat Jewelry

The techie behind Hussein Chalyan's work, Mortiz Waldemeyer has created his own haute tech jewelry concept "Heartbeat." Heartbeat is an animated heart-shaped pendant worn underneath your shirt that uses the fabric to diffuse and abstract the LED lights.

From his website:

The… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 30, 2009 at 11:42am — 6 Comments

Smart Textiles Salon

A few of you have emailed me about upcoming conferences and opportunities to present your work. Over this weekend I will be creating an opportunities section for this blog that will cover grants, conferences, calls for prototypes, etc for the wearable art and technology arena. If anyone knows of any upcoming opportunities, please email me a link.

For now, I want to call attention to the… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 30, 2009 at 10:26am — 1 Comment

Interview with Hannah Perner-Wilson

Most of you might know Hannah Perner-Wilson by her username Plusea. Hannah is a talented young artist and prolific maker whose work in electronic textiles and sensors has been inspirational to the DIY community. I met Hannah at last year's Maker Faire and was immediately impressed by her clever (not to mention beautiful) designs for novel wearable interfaces in projects like the… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 29, 2009 at 11:30am — 2 Comments

Touched by Strangers Wearable Art Performance

Touched by Strangers is a lovely performative art piece by ITP students Alexander Reeder and Yutaka Kitamura. The piece is performed by two actors in white suits with hand silhouettes (appears to be made from conductive fabric). As the actors embrace or are caressed by passersby the beautiful video (below) animates.

The… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 28, 2009 at 10:06am — No Comments

Electroplated (Conductive) Textiles Inspired by Nanoscience

Dr. Frances Geesin, a researcher and textile artist, is a winner of the NanoArt 2008 competition for her magnificent work with electroplated textiles inspired from microspcopic images of the invisible elements in our world. Working from nano images, Geesin is inspired by the complex and layered… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 27, 2009 at 1:55pm — No Comments

Illuminated Furniture

I love the simplicity of Meritalia's "Via Lattea” line of illuminated padded furniture. The furniture line is continuously evolving, with each new evolution using a new set of unorthodox substances and materials.

Illuminated Furniture

The latest version uses a strong white fabric created with warps and wefts in black carbon… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 24, 2009 at 11:04am — No Comments

Conductive Ink for your Skin

Conductive Ink

Taking the concept of "Skin as the New Interface" to the next level, "Bare," a body paint that conducts electricity, was developed by Royal College of Art students Becky Pilditch, Matt Johnson, Isabel Lizardi and Bibi Nelson.

Non-toxic conductive ink

Bare is a non-toxic conductive ink that can be… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 22, 2009 at 7:40pm — 1 Comment

DIY Power Generating Shoe

Power-Generating-Shoe

To continue the theme of the human generated energy, I discovered this wonderful "Power Generating Shoe" tutorial by Instructables user Flagella.

Power-Generating-Shoe

The tutorial requires… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 20, 2009 at 9:43pm — No Comments

eKitty

eKitty is a cat cushion with an LCD photo frame built into its head. The idea behind eKitty was to see the reaction of people when a simple cute toy shows them an emotion. In this case smile, smirk, wink, sleep, and happy.

My kids are fascinated by the changing faces of the eKitty, you can give it big cuddles as well.

The small 2.4in LCD… Continue

Added by Rarebeasts on April 20, 2009 at 6:24pm — No Comments

Human Generated Power Devices

Harnessing kinetic energy from wearables is a relatively under-explored approach to sustainable energy. Until we have piezoelectic fabrics readily available, we will have to create clever hacks to deliver and demonstrate the potentials of using human power to generate electricity.

The two projects I want to introduce, the Footprint Project and Firefly, are conceptually the same: the main difference is the context. Both use kinetic energy gained through… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 20, 2009 at 9:43am — No Comments

Piezoelectric Tiles

POWERleap harnesses the kinetic energy from foot traffic and cleverly uses it to create a flooring system that lights up with every step. Using piezoelectric materials (a smart material that generates electricity when compressed or bent), the energy generated from the piezos are stored in the battery used to power the LED tiles.

This project is so simple that… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 19, 2009 at 10:00pm — No Comments

Thermochromatic Furniture

Yala Sofa

The Yala Sofa is a nice use of thermochromatic inks to create upholstery fabric. The furniture aims to a create a space for people to come together. The sofa "blossoms in the company of others" when it is occupied and, when unoccupied, the imprint of the shared experience slowly fades away.…

yala sofa

Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 17, 2009 at 12:08am — 2 Comments

Computational Jewelry

computational Jewelry

Skylar Tibbits' experiments in computation and ornamentation have resulted in the following set of beautiful jewelry. His copper cuffs are waterjet cut and made using “path responsive surface curves." To be honest, I'm not quite sure what that means but I'm assuming it has something to do with 3D modeling and fabrication tools. Anyone who can expand upon this, please comment away… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 13, 2009 at 10:16pm — 1 Comment

LED Display Skirt

Flicker user Changelyng made this wonderful LED Display skirt that individually spells out the letters of "Gok-Must-Die."

LED Display Skirt

Conductive traces for LED Matrix (back of skirt)

Made using conductive thread, multiple SMD LED sequins are sewn into a matrix and then programmed.

This project is… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 13, 2009 at 9:00am — No Comments

Sensing Smell — Environmental Sensors

Carbon Dioxide CO2 Sensor

In my hunt for unique sensors, I stumbled upon some interesting gas sensors that I wanted to share with all of you. So if you're interested in working on a project that can sense or "smell" a variety of environmental gases, these off-the-shelf sensors available via Futurlec may be a great starting point.

Pictured above is the Carbon… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 10, 2009 at 12:35pm — 2 Comments

Featured in Inhabitat's Spring Greening Contest

I was recently chosen as one of the top 15 entries in InHabitat.com's Spring Greening Contest.

Voting goes through tomorrow at midnight and you can vote once per day.

I entered my craft case which was the case my macbook came in but covered in fabric.

Vote here for your favorite design:… Continue

Added by Alison Cromie on April 9, 2009 at 3:30pm — 4 Comments

High-tech Fiber Exhibit

Senseware is a new exhibit that will be taking place from April 22-27 at the La Triennale di Milano.

The exhibition is an attempt to visualize how the new artificial fibers developed through use of emerging technologies will spur a new wave of creation. These high tech fibers have unique characteristics — some are as fine as… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 9, 2009 at 12:20pm — No Comments

Wearable Boombox

Dirk Winkel reinvents the boombox with a modern and stylish twist. His version of the ghetto blaster, Nu Blaster, can be carried across your hip or on your shoulder and works with your MP3 player of choice.

Wearable Boombox

Via Yanko… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 7, 2009 at 12:01am — No Comments

WildUrban Radio: Tuning Into Nature

Wild Urban Radio

Technology is a great communication tool — we use it everyday to connect and communicate with each other. But how can technology be used as a vehicle to connect us with nature?

Dana Gordon wants us to tune in to nature via her wildUrban Radio currently on exhibit at Harvard University as part of the… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 6, 2009 at 10:00am — No Comments

Interactive e-textile Workshop with Arduino Lilypad

E-textile

Adrian Freed is holding an excellent e-textile workshop this summer that you won't want to miss.

You will be working with the Lilypad Arduino and a handful of conductive materials to build interactive clothing and musical instruments.

Details Below:

The workshop runs from July 25-26, 10 AM-5 PM… Continue

Added by Syuzi on April 6, 2009 at 12:00am — 1 Comment