I took a bunch of photos at the conference, and I’ll get those up soon, but in the meantime, check out Jean-Baptiste Labrune’s photostream from flickr to see some fantastic photos of the event.
Jay Silver created this awesome video of the studio session, which happened on day 2 of the conference. Check it out!
http://www.vimeo.com/9029856So many exciting things have happened over the last few months! Sadly, I’ve been extremely busy and have been neglecting my blog duties. Now it’s time to try and catch up 
Holly Schmidt and I submitted our project Bio Circuit to the Explorations category at TEI ‘10 – Conference for Tangible, Embedded, Embodied Interaction – hosted at the MIT Media Lab. The conference is about HCI, design, interactive art, user experience, tools and technologies, with a strong focus on how computing can bridge atoms and bits into cohesive interactive systems. In early November we received the news that we were invited to participate in the conference, and a frenzy of work began. A couple months later, Holly and I flew from temperate Vancouver to chilly Boston to attend the conference from January 25-27.
The conference was amazing! It was extremely exciting to see the work that is going on within this field. The first day involved an interesting talk from keynote speaker John Frazer, who pioneered the development of intelligent and interactive building design systems. The afternoon consisted of extremely interesting paper presentations, and the afternoon concluded with the Demo Session, which we were a part of. The demos included projects that were of “visually and sensually rich content created by a diverse and broad group of practitioners, researchers, artists, designers, inventors, students, and independents” (TEI Explorations).
The Demo session was fast and furious, and Holly and I received a lot of great feedback. It was interesting to speak to people from such diverse backgrounds and to hear their perspective on our project.
Holly and I would like to extend a special thank you to Emily Carr University of Art + Design for supporting us in the opportunity to attend this fantastic conference.
Given the recent press about Bio Circuit today, I thought I would post some more photos of the project.
Thanks to Fashioning Technology, MAKE Magazine, DIY Experts and others for mentioning us today!
Our video of Bio Circuit is now online. Take a look and tell us what you think!
http://www.vimeo.com/7748200This video depicts the collaborative wearable technology project of Bio Circuit in action. Bio Circuit was created at Emily Carr University by myself (Industrial Design student Dana Ramler), and MAA student Holly Schmidt.
Bio Circuit is a vest that provides a form of bio feedback using data from the wearer’s heart rate to determine what “sounds” they hear through the speaker embedded in the collar of the garment. The wearer places the heart rate monitor around the ribcage, resting against the skin and close to the heart. An MP3 audio player embedded in the vest plays the audio track related to that specific heart rate. The audio tracks are soundscapes mixed from a range of ambient sounds. If the wearer’s heart rate is low, the soundscape will reflect a quiet natural area with sounds such as water, birds and insects. If the wearer has a high heart rate then they will hear a cacophony of urban sounds such as people talking and traffic.
Bio Circuit stems from our concern for ethical design and the creation of media-based interactions that reveal human interdependence with the environment. With each beat of the heart, Bio Circuit connects the wearer with the inner workings of their body. In this sense the garment functions like other biofeedback devices that use sensors to provide a person with information about their physiological state. With Bio Circuit, we are proposing that these kinds of devices could extend a person’s awareness to include the environment.
* A special thank you to Suzi Webster, Bobbi Kozinuk, Emily Carr IDS, Bryan Rite and Angela Henderson.
There is more information about the Interactive Futures 09: Stereo exhibit online here
Bio Circuit at IF'09: Stereo
Bio Circuit will be a part of the Stereo Exhibit in the Concourse gallery of Emily Carr University this week.
Stereo Interactive Futures ‘09: Stereo (IF’09: Stereo) will be hosted by the Intersections Digital Studios at Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver. IF’09: Stereo offers a broad thematic reading of “stereo” to include research and art works that use techniques and devices to lure the body into ephemeral spaces. Examples include stereographic films and animations, linked interactive performance spaces, simulated touch interfaces, binaural sound works, and mixed-reality art works. IF’09: Stereo has invited practitioners who are working with subtle uses of immersive techniques, illusionary space and objects, and telepresence that evoke unexpected responses and challenge the modes of creation used by popular entertainment media and technologies…>
IF’09: Stereo has invited media artists, designers, researchers and filmmakers experimenting with: stereographic projection; illusionary sound and vision; methods of co-location (ways of simultaneously mapping and representing more than one location).
If you’re interested in seeing Bio Circuit for yourself, you can visit Emily Carr University (1399 Johnston Street) on Granville Island in Vancouver. Stereo will be in the Concourse Gallery from Nov. 18-22nd. IF’09 is on from Nov. 19-21.
‘Human Antenna’ is a project by Swiss designer Florian Kräutli who is currently working in the Netherlands. It is another example of soft technology that I love so much!
http://www.vimeo.com/5334661
The lush, white carpet is interwoven with conductive thread and transforms anyone who stands and walks across the carpet into a human antenna.
The carpet picks up the radio waves which your body receives and makes them “hearable.” When walking on the carpet you can tune it to a certain frequency, similar to the tuner of a radio.
I really love the idea of engaging with the things in our home to make them come ‘alive.’ Without the user, the carpet is silent and functions in a regular way. Walking across it completely transforms it into an interactive soft technology and brings a new element of sound into the environment.
I am fascinated by projects using ’soft technology.’ The term relates to wearable technology of course, but it also encompasses really interesting projects that use technology and materials in unusual ways.
Swedish designer Hedvig af Ekenstam has completed a number of product designs that do just this. Her ‘knitted radiator the ‘knitted radiator’ is designed using heating cables coiled to create a new type of radiator. The design is a flexible and lightweight screen that can be shaped to fit the user’s needs. I love it!
Her project ‘Heating Curtain’ is another radiator design. The curtain is made from fabric and has a heating coil woven into it to provide heat.
This light, visually attractive mobile heating unit is a beautiful and innovative alternative to the typical electric heater found in the market today.
It’s finally finished! And it finally has a name! For months our wearable technology project has gone unnamed, but today we are pleased to introduce you to Bio Circuit*
Holly and I got together on Friday to do some filming, and hopefully we’ll be able to post some footage of Bio Circuit in action very soon! We are working on a submission to TEI’10, a conference for Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction. Our video and paper submission will be to the Explorations category, so keep your fingers crossed for us as well.
** thank you to the beautiful and wonderful Angela Henderson for being our model
Ok, so by the end of the day, I was jumping around the WIP lab with joy!
That’s right, you guessed it: success. The changeover to the lilypad arduino went smoothly, and when we hooked it up to the battery power source everything worked!So now the technology pieces must be integrated into the garment. This will involve some temporary tacking and pockets, because we’re not sure exactly how it will work/feel once it is part of the vest. So before permanently altering the garment I’ve worked so hard on, we’ll try some arrangements and continue to develop that aspect later. But for now, we are both very happy with what we have.
Although it’s not done yet, I’ve posted some photos of the vest (a work in progress).So everyone will just have to wait and see how the whole thing looks together tomorrow morning.
Good luck everyone!
