Fashion SensingFashion SensingFASHION SENSING / FASHIONING SENSEA CONVERSATIO N ABOUT A ESTHET ICS WITH INTERNATIONALFASHION MACHI NES M A G GI E ORTHb y A n ne G a l l o w a yTextiles are one of humanitys oldest technologies, and costuming hasalways been central to cultural and personal identity. Clothes andaccessories mark and communicate our similarities and differences. Interms of social interaction, cross-cultural encounters are bothfacilitated and constrained by fashion, be it external body modificationslike tattoos and piercings, or clothing and accessories like jewellery,bags and – increasingly – technological devices like mobile phones.Social and cultural researchers often approach the question ofconsumption in capitalist societies as a primary way for people toexpress and negotiate identity, preferences, and social status. Ascomputing and communication technologies become increasinglymobile, they also become increasingly wearable. That is, we canpersonalise the looks and sounds of digital devices, and use them asfashion accessories. The practical functionality of these devices isincreasingly being augmented by their ability to explore and expressour aesthetics and identities.Maggie Orth is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of InternationalFashion Machines [www.ifmachines.com/] – an artist and technologistwho designs and invents interactive textiles in Cambridge,Massachusetts. Her doctoral work at MITs Media Lab (1997-2001)included patents, research, publications, and design in new physicalinterfaces, wearable computing, electronic textiles, and interactivetextile musical instruments. Orth describes herself as someone who“looks forward to the challenge of making beautiful, practical, andwearable art fashion and technology products a reality”. I spoke toOrth in July, 2004 about how mobile and wearable technologies arebeing used as aesthetic or expressive – rather than purely functional –devices, and what is at stake in these increasingly fluid relationsbetween technology, art, nature, and culture.Anne Galloway: As mobile and wearable computing becomesincreasingly common in everyday life, I wonder how our relationshipswith technology are changing. Historically, computing seems to bemore concerned with function than form – what a machine could do wasmore important than how it looked. But now, for example, mobilephones can be personalized with different faceplates or ring tones,leading some people to describe them as expressions or extensions ofour identities.Maggie Orth: This is a complex area. In most computers software isthe function – the form has for a very long time been neutral beige,with little identity. I recently heard a discussion in which someone saidthat that was because computers are extensions of our minds, ourselves, and as such we want them to have no separate visual identity,to be neutral. I think that computers have managed to remain neutralbeige for so long because their function is based on their interiors,their software. But I also find it intriguing to think that, as extensionsof our mind – which is invisible to ourselves
Cheryl Miller-Dunn: I think the real work around that is to understand those things where we interact with our minds, our software, the human body. They do not stand out. They come down to a combination of technicalities, their functionalities, their forms– and its social and ethical implications. This has to do with the fact that most people now understand and treat computers much more like humans in a way thatwe can understand them as a kind of digital instrument,rather than as anything we could call an artificial construct. They become much more sophisticated, sophisticated, complex, sophisticated, and more human. We could create electronic tools and tools for all sorts of purposes, from reading articles to performing social calculations.But I do think that, given the nature of modern life, we can be very goodasses to understand how that works. We as individuals are betterinformed about the ways society works. There is a more than one way to deal with reality, which is just as well the physical environmentࢣ which is what makes the world, and how we live in it. So this is the question we need to decide…and which of the more subtle elements of our present-day relations have become increasingly important to us.Maggie Orth: It seems that we’re not thinking of technology or our environments as being as much as we want them to, as being about the way we interact with technology. We are only thinking of the ways technology could be used differently. Why?Maggie Orth: The first answer this time around is the first time we have. What