special event this friday at ITP
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SPECIAL EVENT
XS Labs: electronic garments that consume the body
This Friday, February 22
6:30pm room 447 at ITP
Berzowska will give a brief overview of XS Labs research, with a
particular emphasis on her most recent project, the SKORPIONS.
http://xslabs.net/skorpions/
SKORPIONS are a set of kinetic electronic garments that move and
change on the body in slow, organic motions. They have
anthropomorphic qualities and can be imagined as parasites that
inhabit the skin of the host. They are living behavioral kinetic
sculptures that exploit characteristics such as control,
anticipation, and unpredictability. They have their own
personalities, their own fears and perversions. SKORPIONS integrate
electronic fabrics, the shape-memory alloy Nitinol, mechanical
actuators such as magnets, soft electronic circuits, and traditional
textile construction techniques such as sculptural folds and drapes
of fabric across the body. The cut of the pattern, the seams, and
other construction details become an important component of
engineering design. SKORPIONS reference the history of garments as
instruments of pain and desire. They emphasize our lack of control
over our garments and over our digital technologies. Our clothes
shift and change in ways that we do not anticipate. Our electronics
malfunction and become obsolete.
XS LABS
http://www.xslabs.net/
XS Labs is a design research studio with a focus on innovation in the
fields of electronic textiles and wearable computing, where we try to
break down the traditional boundaries between disciplines. Many of
our electronic textile innovations come from the fact that we look at
the technical but also cultural history of how textiles have been
made for generations (weaving, stitching, embroidery, knitting,
beading, quilting) but use materials with different electro-
mechanical properties, which enables us to construct more complex
textiles with electronic properties.
JOANNA BERZOWSKA
http://www.berzowska.com/
Joanna Berzowska is Associate Professor of Design and Computation
Arts and Director of the Graduate Certificate Program in Digital
Technologies at Concordia University. She is a member of the Hexagram
Research Institute in Montreal and the founder and research director
of XS Labs, where her team develops innovative methods and
applications in electronic textiles and responsive garments.
Her art and design work has been shown in the Cooper-Hewitt Design
Museum in NYC, the V&A in London, the Millenium Museum in Beijing,
various SIGGRAPH Art Galleries, ISEA, the Art Directors Club in NYC,
the Australian Museum in Sydney, NTT ICC in Tokyo, and Ars
Electronica Center in Linz among others.
She lectures internationally about the field of electronic textiles
and related social, cultural, aesthetic, and political issues. She
was recently selected for the Maclean’s 2006 Honour Roll as one of
“thirty nine Canadians who make the world a better place to live in”.
She received her Masters of Science from MIT for her work titled
Computational Expressionism and subsequently worked with the Tangible
Media Group of the MIT Media Lab and cofounded International Fashion
Machines in Boston. She holds a BA in Pure Math and a BFA in Design
Arts.
Midori Yasuda
Admissions, Special Events, Alumni Coordinator
Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP)
Tisch School of the Arts
New York University
721 Broadway, 4th Floor
New York NY 10003
Phone: (212) 998-1882
Fax: (212) 998-1898
midori.yasuda@nyu.edu