13. Implications and applications

pitch by Mina Mayo Smith

designing new ways to self express

I start off with a really philosophical question

What do we seek for in clothes?

My initial thoughts on clothes grapple with the themes of Concealing ourselves vs Revealing ourselves .

From a young age we are taught to cover ourselves up before we leave our homes; we use clothes to protect ourselves from our environment, or perhaps, to get really biblical, to conceal ourselves from our shame (of being naked and vulnerable and self conscious)

Yet, clothing can also help us reveal ourselves. When we choose to wear an item of clothing: we are essentially revealing what community we are a part of, what we value, how we have agency over deciding how’d we’d like to be perceived

But my project will hone in on a more personal form of expression

As a result, the next questions i decided to ask are

When the decision is in your hands…

What do we seek to express in ourselves thru clothing?
Where do we seek to express ourselves?
How do we seek to express ourselves?
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Can clothing protect us mentally and give us strength?

what is clothing to me?

I view clothing as a language, to express our voice and our identity

Think about it: How often is it that you want to share your vision, your values and your voice.

Of course its up to you if you want to share. There could be times when you want to conceal.

I find that when i do want to reveal, to take up space , to express myself: It can be frightening.

My project invites us to reveal and conceal ourselves as we please.

To practice projecting our emotional vulnerability into the world, while making sure we feel physically protected at the same time. In other words:

i want to create a garment that helps to voice the identity of the body it’s servicing. a garment that emotes and communicates

To do this, i need to reject the idea that a garment can only exude a single message at all times

As human beings, our emotions are elusive, volatile and fleeting – we experience constant fluctuations in our emotions. Our joy is as fleeting as our sadness, shame, embarrassment.

What if our clothes could translate these constant changes that we experience?

Species with Chromatophores can change the color of their skin to emote themselves. why can’t we?

techniques

To investigate this idea...i want to explore some particular techniques that i resonated with the most during the course...computational couture, electronic sensing and textile scaffold.

As rico puts it: i enjoyed the “future forward implications of garment making that arose from Computational Couture & Electronics...as well as the tactility and immediacy of scaffold building”

Not to mention the discourse of an exaggerated human anatomy during Digital Bodies week

What if the shape of our clothes helped define us, instead of the other way around?

This contradiction between physical and virtual in my project somehow mirrors this moment in time when Analog processes and Digital processes are both prevalent and relevant.

projection mapping

Projection Mapping will be the digital tool for me to bridge the virtual with the physical.

Digital dynamic images will be mapped onto physical form that are whimsical and sculptural.

my goal

the exaggerated and disconfigurated human shape created by the physical scaffold speaks volumes on its own, but by including our own bodies as input sensors, the physical can actively communicate with its virtual counterpart.

with the help of electronic sensing, the body feeds the computer information that enables it to respond by sending information back onto it ... via the projector.

why is this project important to me?

For various reasons :

personally

The first being It’s an expression of the current time we are living in, where digital real-time communication is a legitimate form of socialization for our generation

My project aims to optimize the timeline that we are evolving in (a hybrid of digital and analog worlds)

projection mapping is a tool that perfectly encapsulates the bridging of this dichotomy..as it provides the connection between computer generated work with the sculptural physical construction my hands want to make.

environmentally

Secondly, Theres no shortage of research and evidence that point towards digital fashion as one of the innovative solutions to the environmentally unsustainable problems that the prevailing fashion industry engenders.

We are probably familiar with the detriments of the fast fashion industry. from the way it impacts its laborers (exploitative labor conditions: child labor, low wages, unsafe conditions and harassment) to the way it impacts the environment (carbon emissions, water wastage, consumption, pollution, soil degradation) and even the individual (with the notion of one size fits all, rigid beauty standards that perpetuate body dysmorphia and other self esteem illnesses).

digital fashion takes these issues into consideration by lessening or completely negating its harmful impact on the environment, as well as individuals