Fashion Sensing

FASHION SENSING / FASHIONING SENSE

A CONVERSATIO N ABOUT A ESTHET ICS WITH INTERNATIONAL

FASHION MACHI NES' M A G GI E ORTH

b y A n ne G a l l o w a y

Textiles are one of humanity's oldest technologies, and costuming has

always been central to cultural and personal identity. Clothes and

accessories mark and communicate our similarities and differences. In

terms of social interaction, cross-cultural encounters are both

facilitated and constrained by fashion, be it external body modifications

like tattoos and piercings, or clothing and accessories like jewellery,

bags and - increasingly - technological devices like mobile phones.

Social and cultural researchers often approach the question of

consumption in capitalist societies as a primary way for people to

express and negotiate identity, preferences, and social status. As

computing and communication technologies become increasingly

mobile, they also become increasingly wearable. That is, we can

personalise the looks and sounds of digital devices, and use them as

fashion accessories. The practical functionality of these devices is

increasingly being augmented by their ability to explore and express

our aesthetics and identities.

Maggie Orth is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of International

Fashion Machines [www.ifmachines.com/] - an artist and technologist

who designs and invents interactive textiles in Cambridge,

Massachusetts. Her doctoral work at MIT's Media Lab (1997-2001)

included patents, research, publications, and design in new physical

interfaces, wearable computing, electronic textiles, and interactive

textile musical instruments. Orth describes herself as someone who

"looks forward to the challenge of making beautiful, practical, and

wearable art fashion and technology products a reality". I spoke to

Orth in July, 2004 about how mobile and wearable technologies are

being used as aesthetic or expressive - rather than purely functional -

devices, and what is at stake in these increasingly fluid relations

between technology, art, nature, and culture.

Anne Galloway: As mobile and wearable computing becomes

increasingly common in everyday life, I wonder how our relationships

with technology are changing. Historically, computing seems to be

more concerned with function than form - what a machine could do was

more important than how it looked. But now, for example, mobile

phones can be personalized with different faceplates or ring tones,

leading some people to describe them as expressions or extensions of

our identities.

Maggie Orth: This is a complex area. In most computers software is

the function - the form has for a very long time been neutral beige,

with little identity. I recently heard a discussion in which someone said

that that was because computers are extensions of our minds, our

selves, and as such we want them to have no separate visual identity,

to be neutral. I think that computers have managed to remain neutral

beige for so long because their function is based on their interiors,

their software. But I also find it intriguing to think that, as extensions

of our mind - which is invisible to ourselves and incorporeal - they have

had, up until recently, little visual identity. Software can change a

computer's function or meaning with the push of the button, but the

form remains neutral.

AG: I'm really interested in this neutrality. I tend to see it as a way to

naturalize or normalize technology - to make it appear innocuous and

somehow beyond critique. And that makes me feel powerless, or at the

mercy of technology. In other words, I don't see my hopes and dreams

reflected in most computing technologies.

MO: Well, artists are striving to change that, to de-neutralize the beige

box. I think that de-neutralizing technology provides people with more

choices, and also humanizes it. It reflects our need for experience and

feeling. We are not merely productive or functional - like so much

computing - and de-neutralizing technology makes it more a reflection

of our aesthetic selves.

AG: I like the idea that a de-neutralized technology is more in line with

my aesthetic self. It seems softer, more human - not so hard and

machine-like.

MO: I think soft computing, like e-textiles, adds an important new

dimension to how humans think about, react [to], and interact with

technology. From a more traditional aesthetic perspective, it expands