Posted: October 20th, 2011 | Author: buy cialisbuy generic viagraadmin | Filed under: order levitrabuy cialisMeetups | order cialis onlineorder levitraNo Comments »
Wednesday October 12, 2011
This month’s meetup featured Toronto-based media artist order viagrabuy generic levitraJessica Thompson, who spoke to us about using the body as the site of the artwork, in both public and intimate ways. Jessica works predominantly with sound, interactivity, and the body. Her work entitled Walking Machine allows one to privately hear the sounds of their amplified footsteps. Using the device, or even watching one use the device, creates an atmosphere of play when people engage with their footsteps and the urban environment in new ways. Walking Machine (2003) engages the “physical and psychological space that you move through when walking, “ says Jessica. “You are extending the body through sound; articulating one’s presence in space.”
Jessica incorporates a practice of ‘play’ to engage people in her work, sometimes integrating childhood activities, as in Bike Hack and Soundride (ongoing since 2005). In this collaborative piece, participants make bicycle-mounted noisemakers that are then amplified for the broader public to hear, in what she calls a “large-scale sound ride”. Jessica’s work lies at the intersection of the public, the personal, and the performative.
The H2.0 Collective, comprised of Mike Vaughan, Lorett Faveri, Joanne Jin and Chris Holborn, presented their series of anthropromorphic dresses that were recently on display at OCAD University during Nuit Blanche. The garments, titled “Lustful”, Anti-social”, “Bashful” and “Joyful” were each engaged by interaction from the viewer, by way of motion, proximity, and sound. One dress, “Lustful”, was embellished in LEDs and flower petals. When a person moved in front of the dress, it lit up and sounds of a woman’s orgasm were heard. “Joyful”, the party dress of the bunch, filled up with air and blew confetti through a layer of its translucent skirt. The Collective spoke of their individual inspirations for each piece while showing their supporting mood boards for each one. In typical Toronto Wearables fashion, the night ended with a large group of people interacting with electronic garments, and wondering “what next?” for these exciting technologies available to them.
- Mingling with e-garments
Posted: November 4th, 2010 | Author: amanda | Filed under: Meetups, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Wearable Technology Meet Up 5 at Site 3 on Ossington boasted guest lecturer, Dr. Sean Montgomery a neuroscientist from the States whose hobbies include biofeedback fashion and technology. His interest comes from a desire for greater personal awareness, self-expression, and human biological interaction. He describes our species as having very limited forms of communication focused on the senses of smell and touch, plus facial expression, and verbal language. “Technology is an opportunity to enhance communication and create new ways to communicate”, explains Sean, “Current technology just repeats our old ways of communication”. With bodies constantly sending out communication signals to organs he though it would be “neat” to tap into these communication signals and to create new interpersonal signals that tap into the body.
His first biofeedback apparel was a shirt and accompanying wristband, which pick up the wearer’s heartbeat. The shirt lights with the heartbeat and depending on the frequency of the beats, reveals the wearer’s emotional state. Our heart rate is constantly changing while we walk, talk, when we are startled, and it is silently metering away our lives while we are actively ignoring it. From this perspective the apparel offers a way to remind the wearer and audience that we are organic beings. As Sean describes, “Your heart started when you started- and stops when you stop.” The “heartbeat” shirt is a constant reminder of what’s going on inside you on a physical biological level. A rate monitor in the wristband that is small and compact amplifies the heartbeat. Sean has conceptualized other possibilities for wearable besides wristband and shirt – potential belt buckle or miniaturize using pulseox symmetry for an earring, and other accessories to create a more intimate connection with our heartbeats
According to Sean he is completely enamored with the heart, ironic considering he has spent his life studying the brain, but he sees the heart as an amazing metaphor and states it’s no accident it has a special place in mythology.
Sean’s next major project was a truth wristband that measures galvanic skin response which is sensitive to arousal and excitement – similar to lie detector. To demonstrate Sean slaps himself in front of the audience and the band almost instantly lights up red! It’s primarily responsive to individuals and will reveal how differently people respond to their surrounding environment including sounds and movements.
Through testing the Truth Band Sean has discovered that interestingly often it is the question posed to the wearer, not the wearer’s answer that creates a physical response. For example when asking the wearer, “How do you feel about your mother?” Sean always gets a strong response because everyone has strong emotional ties to their mothers. Very personal questions also tend to get a strong response, but the best part for Sean is that the wristband always and draws out interesting conversation. On Sean’s website produceconsumerobot.com there is a video of him testing his brothers physical responsiveness when wearing the wristband and questioned.
The Truth Band works by measuring the resistance between two plates. As Sean describes we all have a sweat gland in our hand that is in tune with arousal systems, like adrenaline, and pulses of sweat, which makes skin more conductive. The perfect example is sweaty palms at a job interview. Skin resistance goes up through basic evaporation over time, but sometimes events can create spikes depending on the question. What the Truth Band circuits
do is filter out the slow up activity (the band has a filter) and turn the emotional response into a spike that is displayed on LED. It’s a fun visual experience, and anyone can buy the kit on makershed.com with all coding available as open-source. In the near future Sean hopes to create the 21st century mood ring – that actually works!
The last project that Sean brought was the most impressive, called the Thinking Cap. It measures brainwaves using an EEG sensor on the bottom of the skull with electrodes underneath separating brainwaves into different frequencies. According to Sean, there are 100billion neurons in the brain and one of the things neuroscience has discovered is synchrony between them, meaning 2 neurons firing together can communicate better than 1, and can create changes in each other firing patters to stay in sync. This synchrony creates enhanced plasticity of the brain. He describes the brain as having communication protocols through oscillations; the numbers of different oscillations each mean a different part of the brain is activated and communicating. When you are asleep it is the delta oscillation which happens in less than a split second. Other oscillations of the brain include alpha (relax), beta (concentration), gamma (flexible)…. I’m not completely confident in my explanation of this complex system… but basically how it can work is when Sean relaxes the back part of the brain hat can turn completely blue- which means that the alpha has been set off. When it glows red it reflects gamma oscillations. 
The input is an open EEG amplifier + circuit which amplifies the brain signal 10- 10000 times. According to Sean it needs to multiply significantly to be picked it up by a 12 -bit pack. The output is microcontrollers and signal processing circuit. In the future Sean would like to see some mind control artwork, and probably new advertising concepts.
Currently, Sean is collaborating with group of students at OCAD and instructor Paula Gardner, taking brain waves and turning the output into generative 3d sculpture art, which explores the idea brain waves and neuro-realism movement. There is a belief that the brain is a true reflection of reality, the concept being that things in the brain must be “real” and we should believe what is in the brain.
Sean’s interest is sharing the inside on the outside is breaking boundaries, and creating truly expressive, and personal fashionable apparel.
Check out Sean’s website for more articles and videos on his biometric sensors and apparel:
http://www.produceconsumerobot.com/vitalthreads/
To see some pics from the Wearables Meetup go to
http://www.flickr.com/photos/katehartman/sets/72157625103472982/
Posted: April 13th, 2010 | Author: Angella Mackey | Filed under: Meetups | No Comments »
Project Talks:
- Pong Prom – Ed Keeble
- Non-Standard Bodies – Mike Tissenbaum & Ginger Coons
- Kameraflage – Conner Dickie
Posted: March 16th, 2010 | Author: Kate Hartman | Filed under: Meetups | No Comments »
On Tuesday, March 16th, Angella & I hosted the first ever Toronto Wearables Meetup! Here is the description of the event:
The Toronto Wearables Meetup is a gathering of people interested in wearable technology, fashion, wearable electronics, soft circuits, electronic textiles, emerging materials, and other creative and innovative approaches to things that live on the body. This Meetup is a gathering artists, fashion designers, industrial designers, textile enthusiasts, engineers, researchers, students, and anyone interested in these emerging and intersecting fields.
Our first meeting will provide a casual opportunity to discuss what’s happening in Toronto and connect with others. Those working in the field are encouraged to bring images or projects to share. These conversations will serve to strengthen existing connections, reveal new ones, and inform the structure of future Meetups to come.
There were over 30 attendees whose interests included sewing, industrial design, mobile development, pigeons, environmental health, street games, augmented reality, performance art, fashion design, writing, media literacy, art, electronics, painting, installation work, wearable art, breaking boundaries, fibre, hardware, social media, and urban environments. They came form all over the city, representing groups including OCAD, the CFC, Ryerson, Hacklab, George Brown, Site 3, University of Toronto, and Interaccess.
