Eunice Esomonu - Week 10: Implications and Applications

Eunice Esomonu - Fabricademy 2018-2019

Implications and Applications

For my final project, I want to be able to create a series of body suits (not full suits but focus on the jaw, kneck, and torso) inspired by data on the black experience. I want to be able to used various types of materials to showcase the visual representation of data that I'm using and to be felt with the different movement of the fabric. I don't want to show just show random data or exploit the subjects of the data but tie data with fabrication with emotion and feelings.

Goal

The wearable will create body suits from crochet materials (yarn) and/or modular design and use materials such as muscle wire, led, and thermochromatic materials to alter materials based of the data provided.

Inspiration

I always wanted to do a physical representation of data and to showcase it in a way that is humanizing and not exploiting of a subject. It ties into what I'm interested in collecting data and how to show it ethically and effectively. While doing research, on what I can possibly do with data I just looked up wearable data visualization and found this article. It showcase various artist who have used fabrication to visualize various forms of data. Through this article, I was inspired by two projects:

Tremor by Melissa Coleman (NL/UK) and Leonie Smelt (NL)

Tremor from Melissa Coleman on Vimeo.

Furthermore, I was inspired by Melissa Colemanwork in general and how she uses social issues to showcase work.

Human sensor by Kasia Molga

Also, I think my idea clicked when I watched performance and sculpture artist Nick Cave present his work and how he created his sound suits. The emotion he was fillings and the questions he was asking when he created me inspired me to go forward to create a suit using knit and founded materials.

Also, similarly with El Anatsui and his design and work process.

And for sweater created by Nadine Goepfert in the Cranes in the Sky Video.

solange
Solange Pink Jacket in the Crane's in the Sky Video
solange
Solange Pink Jacket in the Crane's in the Sky Video

Research

My research that I looked at these particular things:

  • What type of data I want to show (both seemingly positive and negative)
  • What materials that I should use
  • Ways to connect these materials (crochet and modular fashion)
  • What would happen when realizing the data
  • Who will wear it.

Prototyping

I think I want to be able to develop a smaller prototypes that will allow to see how this project will react on a bigger scale. I want to be able to create smaller smocks of the project and connect electronics to them to see how they will react to a particular data.