Well, we are into the third week of the reskin lab and our ideas and projects are starting to coalesce into extraordinary creations. I was contemplating today that the interesting (and complex) part of many of these projects is that they merge so many distinct areas of practice. Electronics, programming, garment construction, object design and jewellery. The interesting thing about this balancing up is the organic process of problem solving through doing.

The last two weeks have been so intensely packed with new information and experiences that it feels like months since we started. Our current projects have been underway, in earnest, for about 9 days. These days are often 10+ hours long making, doing, chatting, testing…life is short but it is wide.

Schlaffy Blogger

My new pet…

the last week of reskin has come around at lightning speed. a ’show and tell’ session scheduled in the morning revealed a broad and intriguing range of projects beginning to emerge from the detritus of cables and breadboards. Finding precious time to balance the completion of our circuits, and fabricating our wearables will truly be ‘the challenge’ for this final week ahead.

That all said….we still found an enjoyable moment for an afternoon demonstration on anodizing aluminum, and some of us were able to gain hands on experience operating the heavy machinery in the metal workshop. it was a great feeling to get my hands dirty to make something physical for a change…something I have missed working in digital media for so long.

In the delirium of all our hard work there have been some reported sightings of a strange white beastie lurking in the labs………it moved too fast for a clear shot.

sleepy blogger

aka johnno

it’s so late and I just stopped for the day so this isn’t going to be the greatest entry of all time….continued marvellous working environment, so calm considering! and everyone excited by everyone else’s work all the time, very nice support all round.

Joey spoke to me today about the next Big Step - taking the circuit off the breadboard and turning it into something soft(ish), mapping it to the form on the tailors dummy - sounds like a really big job, but this is what it’s all about - but that’s for tomorrow -in the meantime, my feathered friend has been taking shape, and I’ve run out of dress making pins entirely (and so has Sean but he doesn’t know that yet) - here is one of Joey’s drawings of the circuit for your delectation…..

Sarahx

I will miss the Monday ‘show and tell’ as I am installing ‘Handmade Echo’ at Stills Gallery, Paddington. So, along with Sean’s explanation, I am posting the new and improved marcupial version here.
The prosthetic additions have transformed into a media tool, ‘Light Scribe’. This tool allows for somewhat more accurate illustration of light over long exposure camera stills. Drawing in light. ‘Light Scribe’. The images either stills, or sequenced into moving – stop frame.

The index finger and middle finger are used as switches closed by the thumb. Each of these has silver plates mounted on neoprene finger sleeves, with hardware attaching wires to the inverter [large] and power [9V Battery].

The switches activate EL [Electroluminescent] strips mounted on both the forefinger [for accurate line work] and the wrist [for larger wipes of light].
The switches allow for the spacing between letters and interchanging between the fine line and large wipes of light.

An example of this light play is linked below.

See you all on my return. Hope this satisfies the show and tell session and not all have fallen asleep. [see photo]

Dan.K

Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting is an exhibition that is currently on at The Museum of Art and Design in New York. The link above describes it as “A provocative and timely exhibition of work by international artists using fiber in unexpected and unorthodox ways, Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting illuminates a field of creative practice that is fresh, surprising, and engaging.” Via the make blog where you’ll find this great image.

We were scheduled to blog at the beginning of this week… our apologies for the delay! It has been another mammoth week. We have been thrown into the deep end in this crash course in electronics and programming, but excited with all the new knowledge and the new friends we’ve acquired from this workshop ; )

Our week began with an introduction to some incredible possibilities with the looming machines (computerized and manual). We imagine some great weaves incorporating conductive wires to create a sensor or switches. Then we talked about jacquard looms and wet our pants with ideas of probable warps and impossible wefts. By the end of the day we were short circuiting. Our mental state, having worked overtime, was still so far from the final output.

For the rest of the week, we were charged with more lessons about reading variable inputs (getting friendlier with our new little Italian microcontroller buddy, Arduino), performing autopsy on toy corpses - dismembering their noisy organs, making electroluminescent strips glow without electrocuting ourselves, learning about the personalities of heat as well as working on our own projects, collaborations, chasing up bits and pieces and prototype testing. Two highlights of the week - Sean’s chocolate cakes were terrific during our project show and tell on Monday and viewing a video of Bruce Sterling (sci-fi author, futurist) making a most provocative keynote speech at SIGGRAPH 2004 which prompted interesting discussions about sustainable design, Judgment Day, spimes and wranglers. Feeling depressed but inspired, in chorus we couldn’t be more stimulated ; )

So, there’s just a little bit of pressure to produce “working” prototypes by the end of next week as the WearNow Symposium advances… speaking of which - Happy Australia Day! Advance Australia fare, happy barbeque kangaroo day to you!

Now back to the drawing board… x R,J,A

so, after a week and a half of endlessly multiplying divergent possibilities discussed and debated and, finally, after much deliberation mid-week, set forth in a final proposal, we have all been sewing, breadboarding, hacking, soldering and generally moving towards realisation for the past two days. well, maybe not all of us. while others threw themselves into their ideas and worked steadily forward, i struggled against the complexities writhing like a can of worms in my confused mind, and all the dark scary unknowns of this brave new electronic frontier, and, in desperation, ended up with a few too many beers to smooth out the wrinkles on my troubled brow.

but it all sorts itself out, and after a beery bout of self-medication, and a session of toy hacking under stephen’s playfull fingertips (everyone’s eardrums assaulted by my amplified toy-phone-scratching technique, and poor andrea once again eletrocuted), it all looks possible - the group’s positivity is like a bouyant reservoir of hope to draw on, and the facilitators urge us on and provide leads and possibilities. now it just remains to pull all the parts together and make this throat-humming-necklaces-rippling-in-pool-of-sump-oil piece of work that i have designed…. wish me luck.

bloggishly indulgently,

sean.

this morning I said we only have four days to go. It’s not true in a literal sense, but if we take into account how crammed full of goodies each day is (to complement our actual creative processes) time will continue to fly - faster and faster.

I went swimming this morning, and as my body flew through the water (at a rather leisurely, albeit methodical and uplifting, pace) inspiration came to move my ideas beyond the mechanical to something far more intrinsic. laughter’s important in everything we do. as is the roll, swing and sway of a woman’s hips (a man’s too, but most of the women I know are freer in this region of the body). when thinking about wearables, we can’t ignore the body. it’s not about a glorified pressing of a button, it’s about full-body engagement (those who know me will hear a familiar discourse resonating perhaps). at the very least, I hope I make some people laugh next Friday when my project/prototype’s finally presented. (much work still to do between now and then though)

today we all worked on our projects. moving forward incrementally.
Stephen unleashed a bundle of toys he and Dan had found at revolve - they were pounced on with glee and the energy remained high as everyone present dismantled and proceeded to understand and repurpose their newfound, formerly rejected plaything.
Elise shared her experience with EL sheets, cables and inks.
and Joey hers with resistive wiring and the joys, frustrations and difficulties of finding solutions for heating expanses of fabric enough to trigger, and have some degree of control over, the kinds of transformation made possible through the use of thermochromic inks and custom developed nitinol.

shape and colour change are magical. For me, magic, the magical, the poetic is what makes it worthwhile being alive.

as I intimated at the beginning of this post, time is running short.
tomorrow is invasion day so it’s a public holiday. Some people will wander down to the tent embassy to show their support. others will bemoan the public holiday that means suppliers are scarce and the weekend has already begun. as I said before, only four days to go…

but reskin is not all work and no play.
this evening we were invited to Workshop Bilk in Queanbeyan. A Gallery and working studio run by Johannes Kuhnen (Head of the ANU Gold and Silversmith Department) and Helen Aitken-Kuhnen. workshop Bilk (www.workshopbilk.com) is about contemporary glass and metal. it’a a great space, elegantly filled with minimal displays that somehow give access to oodles of fabulous work. Some of us bought some fabulous jewellery. I don’t wear jewellery, but somehow being around people who work and think critically around the possibilities inherent brings me to another relationship.

Yesterday I made something out of solid silver.
working with materials can be an incredibly satisfying experience.
I might not like to wear jewellery, but something makes me suspect I might like to wear this.

d

It all changed today. Today was our first project day !!! The
energy in the lab was totally different to the last few days. It was a
sort of quiet focused energy. Instead of us all traveling as a huge
group, we are going only go to the sessiond we need. The timetabled
sessions were analog inputs to the Arduino and PWM and the Arduino
(analog out). I’m not the person to blog these because I didn’t go
to any of the sessions.

There seemed to be a lot of testing, playing and figuring out if idea are
going to work and how they are going to actually work. We are all working towards
having our circuits ready to go on our breadboards by the end of the
week. Personally today has been one of the days when I’ve been
reminded that things that should be simple often don’t work !!!!

It’s been great to have some one-on-one coaching and thinking time
with the facilitators and I’m sure there will be a lot more.

As I go to bed I am wondering if anyone is still back in the lab working, I’m
sure there is.

Robin

http://www.rowetrading.com.au/smooth/smo_src_ds.htm

Dragon Skin is a high performance platinum cure silicone rubber that cures quickly with no shrinkage. Although it very soft, when cured, it will stretch many times its original size without tearing and will rebound to its original form. Although it is translucent tints and pigments can be added creating colour effects, making it ideal for use in the special effects and animatronics industry where repetitive motion is required.