I came across the notes of an anthropologist's presentation from a wearables conference, and she was talking about seams and scars, and how they demarcate a site where two pieces have been separated and/or put together. They indicate something that has happened in the past and that could happen again in the future.
(I'll let someone better versed summarize the talk:
"Anne Galloway's concise ideas on Seams and Scars. For her, these are signs of being liminal and hybrid, traces of actions, of either making or becoming. Whereas the Ubicomp is looking for a "seamless" experience, wouldn't it be sometimes more interesting to exploit the glitches and use them as a critical tool? This becomes especially important when talking about flesh and machine, since this increasingly possible construct - even though very much a product of western thinking - will bring up a lot of questions in relation to material culture." (from wmmna))
I am interested in scars, what they tell about personal history: I have scars from a couple of accidents, an appendectomy, my dad has scars from his bypass surgery, my grandmother who is now in her eighties, has a scar on her chin from when she was four years old. Having something on your body that will stay with you for your whole life, learning to deal with them (if they are unpleasant). I know tattoos also stay forever (with the exception of laser removal or something -- something that could potentially erase some scars as well?), but they are so deliberate, that they tell a whole different story. Of course the non-deliberateness of scars makes them hard to talk about. you have them because of chance, not for any other reason, but they inevitably become a part of you, as they are something you carry around with you at all times, something unusual that could catch other people's attention.
I think most people would like to get rid of them, to forget the incident that caused them.
but what does a scar really say about you other than "I was careless, or unlucky, or unhealthy and something unpleasant happened to me, and now I have this to remind me?" my friend Dinah said they are an interesting way to be learn more about someone, much more interesting than a formal introduction, because you get more of a context, you get a story in the person's life.
aren't emotional scars also important to people though? when you are getting to know someone better, chances are they will want to talk to you about events in their life that have scarred them in some way, taught them something, or changed them somehow.
i suppose they would also like to get rid of emotional scars, but as anne galloway says, you can learn from scars.
the parallel from scars to seams is quite interesting, though I am not sure the metaphor stands. i mean, seams are deliberate. and they are also points of "re-entry", places where a whole can be temporarily divided and then sealed up again. it is interesting to consider the importance of seams, and how they shouldn't always be considered a negative thing.
with scars, i would say the main consideration is an aesthetic one.
my first experience with seamless clothing was seamless underwear. in that case the seamlessness tries to conceal the existence of something (the underwear). again, this is an aesthetic consideration (right? we don't really want people to assume we aren't wearing underwear, we just don't want it to show).
can this be applied to the construction of wearables?
scars/seams as a conversation starter? way to communicate info to people?
frankenstein dress?
clothes that learn from seams?
ideas of how this might become a project:
way to reward yourself, mark something positive happening, as opposed to something bad having happened.
