Archive for March, 2009

fragile jewelry

I finally have images of my iceberg rings to show everyone! By now everyone must know of my fascination with icebergs, and if you don’t know already you will eventually realize I adore jewelry… so I combined my two favourite things!

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I designed the five rings that fit together to form a miniature iceberg landscape in a three dimensional rendering program, and then had the rings 3D printed. The next step is to cast them, make molds, and experiement with materials. Icebergs are fragile and disappearing, so I was thinking of using a fragile material like porcelain. Or maybe, since one day they might be compeletly gone, perhaps I should immortalize them in something like gold or silver. The idea of bronzing something to freeze it in time, and remember it forever (like a baby’s shoes I guess) also seems interesting.  I’ll let you know how they turn out!

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technological ornamentation

aurora_skin3My first love in this life has always been jewelry. That love affair couple with my new-found interest in wearable technology has led me to find some very exciting examples of jewelry that incorporate elements of technology. Kyeok Kim’s Aurora project uses  patterns of light projected from pieces of jewelry onto the body as ornamentation.  ‘Aurora’ highlights the relationship between different pieces of jewelry, by its nature the pieces interact with the another.

To operate the decorative light, one must gently move the ring (containing a magnet) towards the main jewelry piece. This project is interesting to me because it expands on what the idea of jewelry is as ornamentation, making it more than just a piece of something that you decorate your ear, neck or wrist with.

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an idea evolves

heartbeathoodieIt’s about that time….

Time for everyone to choose a direction and go with it! Time for us to share our ideas! And time to get working!! I am collaborating with ECUAD Masters student Holly Schmidt for the interactive wearables project. The idea is to work with the human heart rate, and externalize the interior sound of the body and the heart beating.

I wanted to see what else was out there using heart rate, and I came across Diana Eng’s project, Heartbeat Hoodie.

The hoodie uses a heart rate sensor and a camera to take pictures whenever your heart rate increases. The photos automatically upload to a blog that you can refer to or share with your friends. According to Eng, it is intended as a form of involuntary blogging.

“The camera is wired discreetly through the seeming of the garment to a basic stamp that communicates with a wireless heart rate monitor. The basic stamp uses an algorithm to analyze the heart beat for increases that might signify a moment of excitement or interest as opposed to physical exercise.”

The conecpt behind this project is useful for Holly and I because it is taking data from the heartrate and turning it into something else, something external. It also creates visual data from ‘excitment’ from the monitor involunatarily, which could provide some evidence or something you were not aware you were ‘excited’ about. It’s an interesting way of externalizing something internal, and the involunatry aspect is especially appealing to me.

a follow-up to icebergs…

I know it seems like I’ve talked a lot about icebergs already, but look at this!!!

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Danish artist Marco Evaristti took 780 gallons of red paint, three fire hoses and a 20-member crew  to Greenland in search of a blank canvas large enough to accommodate his creative impulse. The result is a blood-red iceberg now sitting off the country’s western coast. The work is part of his Trilogy series.

“Trilogy comprises three projects that deal with the themes of territories and states. Using fruit color and fabric, Evaristti coloured an ice cube in Greenland, areas of Mont Blanc and a sand dune in the Sahara, red. He then declared them all as his territory and named it ‘Pink State’. The work is a series of transient changes in nature, touching on issues of environmental pollution, territorial demands and political methods.”

Evaristti was arrested during the Mont Blanc painting.