Urban Play: What if street-hacktivist fashion could redefine the way people play in the urban landscape? Today, street fashion, e.g. for skateboarders, is mixed with location-based augmented reality games to change the way we experience the urban landscape. We speculated about the future where fashion could redefine the way people play in the urban landscapes as a mixed reality.

Computer-Obaachan: What if mass-customizable fashion could adapt to the changing needs of the elderly? Today, we live in a rapidly aging society where every need is one-off and changing. We speculated on the future of garments that could support the changing needs of the elderly beyond physical appearance.

Information Corset: What if self-changing fashion could control our body shape to manipulate the perception of beauty? Historically, women in the Western world manipulated their body shape using garments such as corsets, crinolines, and bustles. Today, we live in a society governed by information technology. We speculated on the post-human bodies that are completely designed through informatization.

Credits

Project Members: Daijiro Mizuno, Kazuya Kawasaki, Tomo Kihara, Keisuke Shimakage, Natsumi Wada, Marika Nakada, Tomoya  Ohta, Kenta Tanaka, Ryosuke Ogata, Shoko Tamura, Kazumi Kanagawa

Film Crew: Naoto Kobayashi, Kenjiro Matsuoka, Ryota Fujinaka, Sohei Suwa, Kizuki Satoi

Hair & Makeup: Traffic

The project is supported by Project Jacquard at Google Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP)

About the artist

Daijiro Mizuno (JP), born in Tokyo in 1979, completed an MA and a PhD in Fashion Design at Royal College of Art. Daijiro’s research projects speculate about how design can make a positive impact on our society. Daijiro is currently working as an Associate Professor at Keio University Faculty of Environment and Information Studies while working as a freelance design researcher. Daijiro also works as a co-editor in chief of fashion design critique periodical, Vanitas.

Kazuya Kawasaki (JP), born in 1991, is a fashion designer who is trying to create a new era of “speculative fashion”. He designs fashion works that speculate about an alternative fashion industry in order to explore the possibility of fusion between fashion design and emerging technology such as biotechnology and wearable technology. Kazuya’s works have been presented at National Museum of Scotland (Edinburgh, 2017), Hong Kong Design Institute (2016, Hong Kong), Design lndaba (2016, Cape town), and AXIS gallery (Tokyo, 2015). He is working as a textile researcher at Poiesis Labs founded by Shiho Fukuhara.

Lesen Sie mehr auf: starts-prize.aec.at.

This project is presented in the framework of the STARTS Prize 2017. STARTS Prize received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 732019.

Clothing has always been a means to protect ourselves against the threats of the biosphere, and Project KOVR protects the individual from the infosphere. By testing and combining different layers of metalliferous fabrics, Dutch designers Schagen and Baauw found an effective solution to protect the individual and his/her everyday tech-devices from radio waves and radiation. The black pockets allow the wearer to still be reachable with their device of choice. Project KOVR is a wearable countermovement designed for people who want to regain control.

Credits

Telefication Zevenaar, Niederlande

Foto: Suzanne Waijers

About the artist

Started in 2016, Project KOVR (pronounced cover) is an ongoing project of Dutch designers Marcha Schagen (NL) and Leon Baauw (NL). The name originates from Esperanto, created to be an easy­ to-learn, universal language that puts aside political and cultural differences and enhances communication transparency. The project is a result of a unique complementary and multidisciplinary collaboration between two designers embodying different fields of work. Whereas Utrecht based Schagen (1991) creates fashion, wearable objects, and performances, Baauw (1991), works as a (graphic) designer, researcher, and educator from Rotterdam. Their shared vision and interest in contemporary and future social affairs led to what is now known as Project KOVR.

Lesen Sie mehr auf: starts-prize.aec.at.

This project is presented in the framework of the STARTS Prize 2017. STARTS Prize received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 732019.

DuoSkin draws from the aesthetics found in metallic jewelry-like temporary tattoos to create on-skin devices which resemble jewelry. DuoSkin devices enable users to control their mobile devices, display information, and store information on their skin while serving as a statement of personal style. We believe that in the future, on-skin electronics will no longer be black-boxed and mystified; instead, they will converge towards the user friendliness, extensibility, and aesthetics of body decorations, forming a DuoSkin integrated to the extent that it has seemingly disappeared.

Credits

MIT Media Lab in collaboration with Microsoft Research.

MIT Media Lab: Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao, Andres Calvo, Chris Schmandt
Microsoft Research: Asta Roseway, Christian Holz, Paul Johns

Photo: Jimmy Day

The MIT Media Lab is an interdisciplinary research laboratory at MIT devoted to projects at the convergence of technology, multimedia, sciences, art and design.

Microsoft Research is the research division of Microsoft. It focuses on advancing state-of-the-art computing and solves difficult world problems through technological innovation in collaboration with academic, government, and industry researchers.

DuoSkin is a collaboration between MIT Media Lab and Microsoft Reseach. The lead researchers, respectively from MIT and Microsoft, are Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao (TW) and Asta Roseway (US).

Read more: starts-prize.aec.at.

This project is presented in the framework of the STARTS Prize 2017. STARTS Prize received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 732019.

This body of research explores and demonstrates fabrication processes for tensile filament structures enabled through the deployment of multiple species of mobile robots on the construction site. For this project, two species of four semi-autonomous robots are deployed to create a continuously changing structure in the gallery space. Throughout the exhibition, mobile robots are to continuously work on an object, removing and adding parts and changing its geometry, demonstrating the potential of the fabrication process live. Collaboration between the different types of robot allows one to view these machines as more than merely tools, but as a micro ecosystem that has the potential to grow and expand over time.

Credits

Maria Yablonina, Institute for Computational Design and Construction, Achim Menges
Research assistants: Olga Kalina, Jingcheng Chen