“Sticky,” a human-powered dress by XS Labs that turns kinetic energy into electricity.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE
Nanotechnologies will also weave a new future of energy-harvesting textiles that can provide a renewable source of energy. Research in electro-active polymers (plastics that change shape when electricity passes through them) and piezoelectric fabrics (textiles that convert the wearer’s kinetic energy into electricity) will soon offer an alternative power source for all the electronics that we carry on our bodies and possess in our homes. Photovoltaics, or solar cells, will become decorative silkscreened patterns that will convert sunlight into energy.
Without the development of energy-harvesting textiles, wearable technology will never be sustainable.
Without the development of these energy-harvesting textiles, wearable technology will never be sustainable. Our garments will even be infused with the capability to sense environmental pollutants and, more importantly, to communicate this data in real-time.
With such crowd-sourced data, environmental conditions in a large city can be monitored on a granular block-by-block basis. This data, when visualized, will transform the invisible toxins in our surrounding into something that is tangible and real. This visualization has the potential to bring profound change in people’s relationship to their environment.
The Climate Dress by DIffus lights up in relation to how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere.
GET SMART
Smart fabrics and wearable technologies provide us with opportunities for change; change in how we understand and experience our environment and how the products we consume shape our future world.
For me, wearable technology is hope: hope that we can change our attitudes and relationship to our environment by making ouselves more sensitive to the consequences of our decisions.
Wearable technology offers the hope that we can change our attitudes and relationship to our environment.
I’d like finish with perhaps my favorite quote by educator and philosopher Marshall McLuhan:
“The book is an extension of the eye…
Clothing, an extension of the skin…
Electric circuitry, an extension of the central nervous system.
Media, by altering the environment, evoke in us unique ratios of sense perceptions. The extension of any one sense alters the way we think and act—the way we perceive the world.
When these ratios change, men change.”
Fascinating technology – especially interested in the crowd-sourcing applications. “It is our choices, our demands from the market, that will bring about the necessary actions and changes in the fashion industry.” Yes!
wow interesting as tracking the tee then becomes tracking the wearer and that goes creepy really fast as the slime masters sans empathy are able to make grand leaps acroos channels to get to abuse.
As far as this discussion goes the human species population downsizing by procreating less across the board and that it needs to control uits voracious consumption has us in a head on collission with the economic system….that is huge and i see a lot of skipping arounbd it , denial, avoidance and whatever but really want to know alt eco system concepts to experiment with . it is good to offer the alternative before we crash and wonder what if?
[...] Ecouterre’s “Ask A Designer” Series asked Syuzi Pakhchyan of Fashioning Technology is wearable technology hype or hope? Pakhchyan ended her hopeful response with a quote from educator and philosopher Marshall McLuhan: [...]
Love this interview with Syuzi!
[...] For more on wearable technology check out ecouterre. [...]