-Planetary Collegium Summit, Montreal 2007

Overview on wearables

Laura Beloff 2006 Independent artist, researcher Planetary Collegium - Plymouth University

Keywords: wearables, wearable computers, wearable media, mediated reality, , art

The development of wearable computers is closely linked to the development of augmented reality, both of which have been motivated by two primary goals; the need for people to access information while being on the move and the need for people to better manage information according to Barfield & Caudell. (Barfield and Caudell, 2001) We have invented glasses, microscopes, etc. to augment our vision and wristwatches to better manage our time. Recently we have developed mobile phones to better manage our lives and our social networks. This paper starts with a brief overview of the history of augmented/mediated reality, and continues to survey a few writers and themes in the wearable field and its history with a focus on more historical or theoretical approaches, and less on the practical and technical. My personal1 interest is in artistic approaches, which could be described by ‘wearables as an artistic strategy’. There are an increasing amount of artistic works and experiments which remind or reference (in their look and functions) wearables, but do not necessarily fulfill the desired characteristics of wearable computers, and are neither focusing on design solutions for wearability. There is still very little existing literature on the artistic side of wearables, although wearable computers as a research field is otherwise fairly well covered in literature. This paper is a general overview of the field.

One of the common contemporary devices influencing a certain kind of transformation of perception is the fairly recently appearing 3G-videophone. It has been surprising to see my –then three year old (2005) - daughter speaking into an ‘ordinary’ mobile phone (she has never seen a 3G phone in videophone use) with her grandmother. During the conversation she wanted to show something to grandmother. She simply said “look” and turned the phone towards the thing she wanted to show. She did this completely naturally as an obvious way to function, without any knowledge that Nokia has been promoting the

1 My main activity is as a practicing artist. http://www.realitydisfunction.org, http://www.saunalahti.fi/~off/off videophone-feature exactly in this way with small guidance movies inside the phones with 3G capabilities. In addition to the concept of videophone or visual phone (seeing the face of a person one is talking with) at least Nokia-3G-phones are promoted with an idea of shared real-time vision.

Augmentation and wearable computers. A famous scientific experiment with the transformation of the perceptual world is by George Stratton. In the 1890s he experimented with upside-down glasses that inverted his visual field of view. He was wearing the glasses continuously for eight days in his normal environment and activities. He later reported that on the fourth day things seemed to be upright rather than inverted and on the fifth day he was able to function and move around his house quite normally. He also noticed that after removing the reversing lenses, it took several hours for his vision to return to normal. (Stratton, 1896) Later on, there have been others following in Stratton’s footsteps in researching transformations of the perceptual world, for example, Huber Dolezal (Dolezal, 1982) and Ivo Kohler2 (Kohler, 1964, Kohler, 1962). Steve Mann3 writes in his article “Mediated Reality with implementations for everyday life” (Mann, 2002): "These eyeglasses [by Stratton], in many ways, diminished his perception of reality. His deliberately diminished perception of reality was neither graphics enhanced by video, nor was it video enhanced by graphics, nor any linear combination of these two. (Moreover it was an example of optical see-through that is not an example of registered illusory transparency, e.g. it problematizes the notion of the optical see-through concept because both the mediation zone, as well as the space around it, are examples of optical-only processing.)" According to Mann, Stratton was the one who introduced the concept of mediated reality4 and presented his research with two important ideas: “1. the idea of constructing special eyeglasses to modify how he saw the

2 Ivo Kohler experimented with special prism glasses that distorted vision such that a straight line would appear curved. After some time of wearing these glasses the subjects' perception adjusted so that the curved lines appeared straight. When the glasses were removed again straight lines appeared to be curved in the opposite direction for a period of time until the subjects were able to readjust to normal vision. http://www.creationism.org/csshs/v05n1p13.htm [accessed 18.12.2006] 3 Steve Mann is considered by many to be the inventor of WearComp () and WearCam ( camera and reality mediator). He is currently a faculty member at , Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Mann has been working on his WearComp invention for more than 20 years, dating back to his high school days in the 1970s. He brought his inventions and ideas to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991, and is considered to have brought the seed that later become the MIT Wearable Computing Project. He also built the world's first covert fully functional WearComp with display and camera concealed in ordinary eyeglasses in 1995, for the creation of his award winning documentary ShootingBack. He received his PhD degree from MIT in 1997 for work including the introduction of Humanistic Intelligence. He is also inventor of the Chirplet Transform, a new mathematical framework for signal processing, and of Comparametric Equations, a new mathematical framework for computer mediated reality. 4 The term “mediated reality” is a general framework proposed to include broad range of devices for modifying human perception or mixing perception with the various aspects of reality and virtuality. world; and 2. the ecologically motivated approach to conducting his experiments within the domain of his everyday personal life." (Mann, 2002) The modifying of human perception and the development of head mounted displays have been closely linked to the development of wearable computers. Ivan Sutherland, a pioneer in the field of computer graphics and often thought as 'the father of virtual reality', wrote an article "The Ultimate Display" in 1965 while he was researching the immersive technologies and developing a see-through head-mounted display. "A display connected to a digital computer gives us a chance to gain familiarity with concepts not realizable in the physical world. It is a looking glass into a mathematical wonderland." He concludes the short article with the following vision: "The ultimate display would, of course, be a room within which the computer can control the existence of matter. A chair displayed in such a room would be good enough to sit in. Handcuffs displayed in such a room would be confining, and a bullet displayed in such a room would be fatal. With appropriate programming such a display could literally be the Wonderland into which Alice walked." (Sutherland, 1965) His head mounted displays used a transparent visor. The users were immersed in augmented reality; the physical environment overlaid by computer graphics on the visor.

Ana Viseu5 defines clearly two different approaches dealing with the relationship between physical and digital worlds: simulation and augmentation. According to her simulation imitates the physical environment via the use of digital elements and keeps both spheres relatively separate. Augmentation uses the digital world to enhance the physical world. She writes: “The ’90s were a time of “virtual supremacy”. The dominant image was that of disembodied minds roaming and growing in cyberspace, of immersive virtual environments, and of digital intelligences that, being created in our image, would soon exceed our own possibilities. The digital elements were endowed with characteristics of the physical world, but both spheres were kept relatively independent. I call this approach simulation.” (Viseu, 2001) Based on Viseu’s definition the most of the virtual reality projects and experiments are simulation, while –for example- wearable computing would be augmentation. “"Augmentation goes a step beyond simulation, the digital is incorporated in the physical without necessarily showing its presence: Here, the human is no longer the measure of all things, the entity that machines are designed to imitate. The human body is viewed as being deficient, in need of improvement, of being enhanced with computing capabilities." She continues: "Rather than building self-contained machines, machines and humans are coupled together into a new hybrid actor." (Viseu,

5 Dr. Ana Viseu is a Research Associate in the Department of Science at Technology Studies, Cornell University, where she researches the social and ethical dimensions of nanotechnology and nanoscience. She specializes in science and technology studies, studies of innovation, and ethnographic research. Her research interests focus on questions of technological agency, embodiment and identity and the ways in which these notions are constructed and transformed through and within emergent information technologies. Ana received her doctorate from the University of Toronto in 2005. Her thesis critically examined the multiple meanings of physical and cognitive augmentation through wearable computers, from the visionary discourses of developers to the conflicted experience of implementation on the ground. 2002) Much of Ana Viseu’s research is occupied with investigating the area of wearable computers. She argues that the discourse around the production of wearable technologies focuses mainly on "quantifiable, causal relationships, thus overlooking the fact that the augmentation of the physical through the digital does not result in physical plus digital, but in a new entity with its own specificities. An augmented human being has a distinct reality, and this raises new issues regarding the place of the human body and self in its relation to technological artefacts." (Viseu, 2002) Viseu writes that wearable computers offer a new way to interact with the environment, which is also expected to be responsive and communicative. (Viseu, 2002) She states in her article "Social Dimensions of Wearable Computers: An Overview” that wearable computers are, to a great extent, the product of ubiquitous computing6 and embedded computing7. She says that: "Initially, wearable computers were considered tools that were designed to give wearers’ instantaneous and constant access to information." This specifically concerns applications designed for the industry and the military. "Nowadays, the ultimate goal of wearable computer developers is to make them proactive, i.e., responsive, communicative and ‘aware’. A wearable computer should be able to recognize its ‘owner’, its ‘location’ and the ‘activity’ being undertaken." (Viseu, 2003) The wearable computer is no longer considered merely as a tool, rather the identity of the wearable computer is now more as a technological companion. (Viseu, 2001)

Steve Mann is undoubtedly one of the main figures in the field of wearable computers. Starting in the late 1970s by building a wearable “photographer’s assistant”, he has developed a series of wearable systems to the present day with features like body mounted cameras, lighting equipment and head mounted displays. One of his well-known projects is EyeTap. He writes about the development: "Our wearable computer reality mediators have evolved from headsets of the 1970s, to with optics outside the glasses in the 1980s,

6 Ubiquitous computing, a term coined in the late 80s, refers to the presence of numerous ‘invisible’ networked computers located everywhere and nowhere (Weiser, 1991; Weiser, Gold, Brown 1999; Ark, Seller, 1999). A ubiquitous computing system is spread throughout the environment, thus enabling mobility; does not require conscious grasping of its mechanism, thus endorsing seamless interaction; and is networked, thereby facilitating communication among the various actors/elements/participants. (Viseu). Ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) integrates computation into the environment, rather than having computers which are distinct objects. Other terms for ubiquitous computing include pervasive computing, calm technology, things that think, everyware, and more recently, pervasive Internet. Promoters of this idea hope that embedding computation into the environment and everyday objects would enable people to interact with information-processing devices more naturally and casually than they currently do, and in ways that suit whatever location or context they find themselves in (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquitous_computing -accessed 29.12.2006) 7 Embedded computing stems from a similar set of desires. Particularly, that of supplying all sorts of actors—human and nonhuman—with communication and computing capabilities, i.e., making them ‘smart’." (Viseu) An embedded system is a special-purpose system in which the computer is completely encapsulated by the device it controls. Unlike a general-purpose computer, such as a personal computer, an embedded system performs one or a few pre-defined tasks, usually with very specific requirements. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embedded_computers -accessed 29.12.2006) to EyeTaps with the optics built inside the glasses in the 1990s to EyeTaps with mediation zones built into the frames, lens edges, or the cut lines of bifocal lenses in the year 2000 (e.g. exit pupil and associated optics concealed by the transition regions)." (Mann and Sehgal, 2004) This small size device affects the eye to become both a camera and a display. The authors write that: "These digital eye-glasses can help us remember better, through what is called a lifeglog (lifelong cyborglog) or ’glog, for short. A ’glog uses lifelong video capture to record what our eyes see over our entire lifetime." (Mann and Sehgal, 2004) With a long history in wearable computers, Steve Mann has written extensively on the developments of his experiments and on wearable computers in general. He has defined three basic modes of operation as characteristic of wearable computers: constancy, augmentation and mediation. Constancy means that the device does not need to be turned on or opened up prior to use. Augmentation refers to the idea that computing is not the primary task, but the user can be doing something else simultaneously. This expected feature of wearable computers is often referred as “hands-free”. Mediation means that the device allows the user to control inbound informational flow for solitude and outbound informational flow for privacy.8 (Mann, 2001) Steve Mann is convinced that reality mediators, which are aimed at personal everyday use, such as hearing aids and personal eyeglasses must have an unobtrusive or hidden appearance, or be designed to be sleek and fashionable. (Mann, 2002) These kinds of goals have influenced another strand of development within the field of wearable computers; the aim of making the computers disappear into our clothing and creating hardware which can be flexible, washable, small in size and light in weight. This area of research has grown hugely during the last years especially amongst practitioners of textile-, fashion-, and industrial-design. They have been developing many new solutions for making electronic components from conductive yarns and textiles and embedding small components straight into the textiles9. This area of research is related to many other fields, for example ubiquitous computing, pervasive computing, wearable computing, locative media and of course to various more traditional design fields. The commonly used terms for this area: wearable technologies, fashionable technologies, wearable design, mobile design, wearable media, smart clothing, etc.

The Eudaemon Shoe. Ivan Sutherland built the first head mounted display in 1960s, but the very first battery-run, mobile and wearable computer was built for predicting gambling results. In his article “The Invention of the First Wearable Computer” Edward O. Thorp writes about his collaboration with in designing and

8 Steve Mann has also observed and defined many other typical –or desirable- characteristics of wearable computers, which can be found in the various published texts. 9 Just to name a few, for example, Maggie Orth from International Fashion Machines, Inc., Joanna Berzowska from Hexagram, Suzanne Lee who is a Research Fellow in Fashion at Central Saint. Also many interesting projects have emerged from this field; for example The Hugshirt from CuteCircuit and Puddlejumper from Elise Co. constructing a roulette-predicting device, which is said to be the first wearable computer. The wearable version of the computer was complete and operational in June of 1961. It used twelve transistors and was about a size of a cigarette pack. The device was hidden in a shoe. In 1961 it was shortly tested in a casino in Las Vegas by its creators and approved successful. The endeavor was kept secret until 1966, when Thorp finally announced the roulette system publicly. Based on results from this experiment a small group of scientists built in the early 1970s an operational wearable computer for the same purpose –predicting roulette- using the next generation of hardware and technology. (Thorp, 1998) This version is known as The Eudaemon Shoe; the name is based on the group, which called themselves The Eudaemons. By 1978 the computer was working and tested in Las Vegas with an average profit of 44% for every dollar. The system was split between two persons: an observer and a bettor. The observer would tap input signals with a foot, the bettor would receive output signals underneath his/her shirt10. Later it is marked about the shoe that: “…this shoe was not a general-purpose computer in the sense that the user could not change its functionality by writing a new program into it, while walking around. It was more like than the wearable computing we know and use today, but it nevertheless serves as a good example of useful wearable technology." (Barfield et al., 2001)

Wearable media. Mobile phones are definitely one of the most popular and used forms of mobile media. Media historian Erkki Huhtamo11 writes: "Handheld devices are personal, attached to the body of the user like clothing, jewellery or a wallet (essentially a no-tech multimedia center with photographs, phone numbers, credit cards, etc.). While we leave our TV sets and PlayStations behind from time to time, the portable small screens have become permanent extentions of the user-owner’s body." (Huhtamo, 2004a) He continues in the text “Pockets of Plenty: An Archeology of Mobile Media” that “Mobile media devices can be treated as “apparata”, that are partly technological, partly psychological, partly cultural. The devices themselves incorporate certain “built-in” modes of usage that are then negotiated, perhaps embraced, perhaps contested, by the users themselves.” (Huhtamo, 2004b) In this text Huhtamo investigates the predecessors of mobile media. Huhtamo divides mobile media devices into three categories based on their usage; portable media, wearable media and vehicle- mounted media. The categories shift depending on how and where the device is used, for example if the Ipod is listened to while running or while driving via a car- stereo. Portable media according to Huhtamo is media, which is often carried by

10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaemons (accessed 20.12.2006) 11 Erkki Huhtamo (born 1958 in Helsinki, Finland) is an internationally known media researcher, writer and curator. He works as Professor of Media History and Theory at UCLA, Department of Design | Media Arts. He has published extensively on media archaeology and media arts. He has also curated several international exhibitions of media art and directed television programs about media culture. He is the co-editor of “Technoculture and the Arts”, a book series for University of California Press. He is currently working on two books, one on the archaeology of interactivity and the other on the history of the moving panorama as a mass medium in the 19th century. us from one place to another and commonly placed, for example, on a table until moved again. An example of this kind of media would be a transistor radio or laptop computer. As the term vehicle-mounted already states, this category contains media, which is built-in or commonly used in a car or in another vehicle. Wearable media according to Huhtamo refers to things that become attached to the user’s body in a more rigorous sense than portable things. Good examples of wearable media would be the Walkman and Ipod, which are often used also in motion. Also a mobile phone in a pocket or attached to a belt and used with a hands-free headset would qualify as wearable according to Huhtamo. When one considers conventions of use and symbolic meanings as being equally important as functions, then the most common form of a wearable would be the wristwatch, and its predecessor the pocket-watch12. Erkki Huhtamo further divides wearable media into overt and covert media. The wristwatch would, in most cases, fall under overt media, as it is commonly visible to other people or rarely would be purposely hidden from others. Covert media devices are carried around, but hidden from other people’s gazes. Covert media includes phenomena like “ero- tech”13 and “spy-tech”14. A good example of covert media from the history of photography is the commercially successful device; C.P. Strin’s “Concealed Vest Camera” from the 1880s. It was a camera designed to be worn under the clothing that shot through a button-hole15.

Hidden camera. Anna Novakov16 writes that during the 1870's there was "an enormous amount of interest in the detective camera, which were miniature cameras meant

12 Huhtamo writes “According to a well-known story, this now ubiquitous device was invented by the French jeweler and clock-maker Louis Cartier in 1904 for the Brazilian aviation pioneer Santos Dumont, who found it difficult to use his pocketwatch to check the time while steering his aircraft. The wristwatch was the perfect device to the high- speed technological environment of an aeroplane or a motorcar, where intense concentration is required, and one false move of the arm may be fatal. Although fascinating, the story about Santos Dumont’s wristwatch is not complete: actually, the device had been invented decades earlier, but its popularity grew slowly, obviously because it was considered feminine - perhaps it was associated with the habit of wearing bracelets. It seems that what was needed to convince men was the masculine, technology- studded profile of Santos Dumont and the fame of Cartier." 13 “ ‘Ero-tech’ contains the large varieties of erotic objects, often with mechanical or optical features, meant to raise sexual desire when discretely displayed for someone. Such devices include peep-viewers with miniature pornographic photographs.” 14 “ ‘Spy-tech’ refers to the huge tradition of secret devices to record conversations, take snap- shots, transmit and receive secret messages and even kill people. The history of spy- tech fluctuates interestingly between real spy gadgets and those imagined in detective stories, films (James Bond) and television series (Men from U.N.C.L.E.), said to have influenced each other. Unlike media that try to reach the widest possible range of users, spy-tech is exclusive, carving out secret channels for “private” communication." 15 http://www.boxcameras.com/stirnvestad.html (accessed 17.12.2006) 16 Anna Novakov is Assistant Professor of Art History in the Department of Art and Art History at Saint Mary's College. Professor Novakov holds a Ph.D. from New York University. She has contributed to the dialogue about public art, modernist architecture, and gender through her books which include Veiled Histories: The Body, Place, and Public Art and Carnal Pleasures: Desire, Public Space, and Contemporary Art. Most recently, she has been awarded a grant from to be used by the flaneur17 to enter the city space and secretly take pictures. They were kept hidden in places such as the inside of a gentleman's hat. While walking down the street, he could be taking photographs, gathering evidence to be scientifically evaluated later. These cameras became extremely popular, and took many forms, often hidden in clothing. Most were constructed for men, and only some for women." (Novakov) Erkki Huhtamo (Huhtamo, 2004b) links this phenomenon to mobile media: “Another manifestation of a desire for mobile media was the outburst of amateur photography in the late 19th century. Indeed, the easy-to-use box camera loaded with celluloid roll film could well be described as the first true mobile medium. Introduced in the 1880s, its use soon reached mass proportions, with thousand of amateurs roaming public spaces in search for a subject." Huhtamo writes that contradicting the standard histories of photography and official descriptions in corporate discourses, amateur photography wasn’t received with unqualified enthusiasm, but rather that it was a site for discursive controversy. Huhtamo continues regarding mobile phones: "Camera phones can function as candid cameras, and their images uploaded on a website in an instant. Although the late 19th century camera craze and the current camera phone craze may seem to have absolutely nothing to do with each other, it could be argued that both have in fact activated the same ‘topos’ (Huhtamo, 1997), a stereotypical reaction model, to negotiate the role of new technology in a social and cultural setting.” Anna Novakov (Novakov) continues tracing further the late 19th century figure of a flaneur with a hidden camera. She writes: "In the mid-twentieth century, the image of the flaneur was overtaken by that of the private detective. The detective as a figure echoes the flaneur in an interesting way." Good examples of this shift are popular detective magazines from the 1940s and 1950s. "There were ads inside the magazines on how to become a detective, which usually involved buying a kit. Often the kits included information on fingerprinting, or suggestions on how to present yourself in the city. The kits were offered for sale by the Institute of Applied Science. The detectives were always men, who presented themselves in a business-like manner. Television ultimately changes the venue for the detective. The favorite television programs are the detective shows, which feed the old desire for flanerie. It is the same old preoccupation in a contemporary form." Novakov writes that from the hidden cameras of the 1870s to the detective fictions of the 1940s, contemporary has developed

the Graham Foundation for the Advanced Study of the Visual Arts for the forthcoming Hidden Heroines: Women Architects of the 1920s Reconsider the Modern Home. 17 A flâneur is a detached pedestrian observer of a metropolis, a 'gentleman stroller of city streets', first identified by Charles Baudelaire. The concept of the flâneur is important in the work of Walter Benjamin, in academic discussions on modernity, and has become meaningful in architecture and urban planning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flaneur (accessed 28.12.2006) “An intoxication comes over the man who walks long and aimlessly through the street. With each step, the walk takes on greater momentum; ever weaker grow the temptations of shops, of bistros, of smiling women, ever more irresistible the magnetism of the next streetcorner, of a distant mass of foliage, of a street name.” -Walter Benjamin. http://www.flaneur.org/flanifesto.html (accessed 28.12.2006) with the ability and preoccupation to watch and observe others all the time. The continuation of this desire can be seen in the recurrence of small size -hidden- cameras in mobile media devices like sunglasses with recording possibilities 18 or in mobile phones. Now all of us are equipped with the possibility to be detectives -whether we want it or not.

Wearables and Art. The two categories “wearable computers” and “wearable media” are obviously overlapping with each other. In “wearable media” the devices (which are usually technological) are described as attached to the body, in contrast to portability. In addition to that, the category of “wearable computers” requires computing abilities and other desirable characteristics -for example a hands-free feature, to be accepted as a wearable computer. Wearable computers and - computing is a technological research field, which is developing various applications and solutions for personal technologies in various ways. The term “wearable media” 19 seems to have appeared from the practice of media- archaeology, which is approaching the field of wearables from a cultural perspective. It traces various wearable-media devices and their significance as cultural, symbolic and functional artifacts. During the last 5-6 years seemingly new cultural and artistic practices have emerged from between the above-mentioned fields. These more artistically directed projects in the form of wearables are usually categorized under “mobile media” or “wearables” by various websites and blogs20. Also other recent genres, for example locative media, are clearly linked to this area of art practice, research and development. Many of the recent art and design projects within the field of mobile media or wearables, cannot necessarily be placed under one specific category, but are dealing with issues from various different genres. In this section I am investigating a few examples from art history, which have an obvious relation to the artworks emerging from this area.

Ana Viseu writes: "Wearable computers shape the way in which the world is experienced because, in one way or another, they mediate the wearers’ engagement with the world, arguably more intimately than ever before." (Viseu, 2001) In the late 1960s art critic Jack Burnham wrote two essays Systems Esthetics (Burnham, 1974b) and Real Time Systems (Burnham, 1974a). These essays describe art, which is linked to the world surrounding us, and art, which is information processed in real time. "The major illusion of the art system is that art resides in specific objects. Such artifacts are the material basis for the concept of the "work of art"." (Burnham, 1974a) Jack Burnham’s examples included, for

18 http://www.spygadgets.com/undercover-cameras/sunglasses-camera.html (accessed 31.12.2006) 19 Erkki Huhtamo (2004) Pockets of Plenty: An Archaeology of Mobile Media IN RIESER, M. (Ed.) The Mobile Audience: Art and New Located Technologies of the Screen (forthcoming). 20 For example; http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/ and http://www.netzwissenschaft.de/mobi.htm example, Hans Haacke’s works from that period, and many were linked to natural phenomena –for example water, ice, wind and temperature. In “Untitled Statement” from 1967 Haacke writes: “A system is most generally defined as a grouping of elements subject to a common plan and purpose. These elements of components interact so as to arrive at a joint goal. To separate elements would be to destroy the system. Outside the context of the whole, the elements serve no function.” (Haacke, 2004). It comes clear from the writings, that art, which was described by Burnham and Haacke as a system, was inherently linked to its environment and engaged with the world21. The art of the late 1960s and early 1970s developed later to become known as conceptual art, minimalism, performance, etc. Another good example from the same time period would be Haus-Rucker-Co; an Austrian artist group focusing on mediated reality experiments with architectural constructions and objects. Their “Mind-Expanders22” (1967-69) were helmet-like balloons connected with seats. These balloons could be tilted over the heads of two seated people. A series of lines and stamped-out shapes made of reflective foil are placed on both the dome and the surface of the balloon in such a way that, depending on whether you concentrate on the level closer or further away from you, the elements constantly overlay each other to form new patterns. “Environment Transformer”23 (1968) is a helmet-like wearable appliance that changes sensory impressions visually and acoustically. “The processes of seeing and hearing are drawn out of their habitual apathy, separated into their individual functions and put together again as special experiences.” In 1969 while still living in Poland, Krystof Wodiczko constructed his “Personal Instrument”. It was a wearable instrument with a microphone placed on the forehead that received sound from environment and transmitted it to the electro- acoustic filters located in two soundproof earphones. These filters were controlled by two photoreceptors, fastened to the palm of each hand. The device transformed the acoustic environment in real-time manipulated by hand gestures. Yet another, more recent, example of mediated reality is Carsten Höller’s Upside- Down Glasses (2001), which he references to George Stratton and his research on retinal image. One of Höller’s primary artistic concerns with this work is the alteration of the perceptual world and the spreading of doubt. These glasses invert the visual field of view, and various optical transformations such as inversion, displacement, reversal, magnification and scrambling occur that foster a severely different notion of perceiving the world around us. The artist encourages the audience to take nothing for granted and to doubt and mistrust what we have come to know as reality.

21 There were, of course, also other writers than Jack Burnham active during that time. For example Lucy Lippard was writing her famous essay and later a book on the “dematerialization of the art object”. She did not describe art as a system, but characterized the art of the time as “ultra-conceptual art”, which focuses on the conceptual side rather than the material side. LIPPARD, L. (1973) Six Years: The dematerialization of the art object 1966-1972, London, Studio Vista. 22 http://www.ortner.at/hr_mi1e.html (accessed 29.12.2006) 23 18 http://www.ortner.at/hr_fl1e.html (accessed 29.12.2006) An art form, which interestingly relates to the area of wearables is “conceptual clothing”. It could be defined as artistic expression in the form of clothing. These clothes are commonly not created for functionality (often not even for wearing). One could consider them as conceptual thoughts in material form. To some extent this development has been triggered by the fact that fashion has become a major social phenomenon alongside the clothing industry and consumption. Commonly these clothes do not contain technology, they focus more on the form, esthetics and politics around the body, fashion and their relation to world. In the early 1970s a German artist Rebecca Horn was creating several works, which had a focus on the body. They were surreal body-worn objects and constructions, which she commonly used in her performances or films. A contemporary example of conceptual clothing would be Lucy Orta24 and her practice, which is located somewhere between art, politics, architecture and clothing. She has been especially involved with the idea of protective gear and survival. Paul Virilio writes about her Nexus Architecture (Collective Wear): “Lucy's collective wear reminds me of collective body practices which exist in the world of survival. The survival of most animals depends on running with the pack. The concept of the pack is linked to animality. Lucy's collective wear represents a denunciation of man's return to the pack. At a time when we are told that men are free, emancipated, totally autonomous, she tells us that, on the contrary, there is a threat and that man is regrouping. We refer to this new phenomenon in terms of gangs, new tribes, commandos." (Virilio, 1996)

It is not simple to categorize “wearable art” within neatly defined borders. Although it is easy to find and observe wearable-works, which are constructed to be wearable and mobile, but do not otherwise follow the research directions typical for wearable computers, but appear more artistic and conceptual. A Belgian artist Lawrence Malstaf’s piece “Compass” (2005) is a fairly large-scale orientation machine to be worn around the waist. As the wearer walks around the room his/her movements are manipulated. The device guides the wearer by avoiding magnetic fields present in specific zones, creating an invisible, yet tactile architecture. The user can –of course- choose to either resist the machine or follow its orders. This work is based on sensor-technology and on the concept of navigation, it is wearable, but it is not constructed to be invisible or convenient to wear, I assume, on purpose. While the aims of the developers and researchers in the field of wearable computers seem to be heading for a development of some kind of a symbiosis (between the user and the wearable) or a seamless experience for the user with a wearable; a wearable computer which is able to sense what the user senses, see what the user sees, do the tasks in which it (the computer) is better, and let the user do the tasks in which s/he is better. (Barfield and Caudell, 2001) In contrast I believe that the conceptually driven artistic approaches within wearables are aiming to make the users perceive the world from a different

24 Few other artists which have done several works along these lines: Yayoi Kusama, Beverly Semmes, Alicia Framis, etc. perspective and to sense something unexpected in a new way with the aid of a computer/technology. Because of the different aims and different initial motivations, many of the artistic projects don’t necessarily follow the same criteria in their appearances nor functions, as “wearable computer”-research. Many of these artistic projects are using quite ordinary and off-the-shelf technology, and the creators seem to concentrate their ‘inventive-energy’ more on the conceptual side of the work. The usage of already existing (and common) technologies shifts the focus of these works. Instead of concentrating on developing better interfaces and implementations, better usability-, and wearability-features, artistic projects are focusing on commenting, experimenting, and questioning the impact of technology on individuals, human psychic and society affected by technology.

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