Crafting Soft Wearables, with and through digital technologies

Abstract

As wearables and e-textiles enter into another hype cycle (Tomico et al. 2017), we find ourselves with the opportunity to reflect on the work done and the work remaining. In doing this, we hope to cast a light on the moment where we are now, the tools available to us, the materials in development, and, always centrally, the human body in its complexity and unchanging biological functionality. The field of wearable soft things or soft wearables (Tomico and Wilde 2016) has developed from a niche concern to an increasingly well-documented area of research. As high performing materials have become more widely available and our systems of making and production more sophisticated, we see wearable electronics projects emerge not only from the arts and fields of technology, but also from fashion, design, and engineering. With the so-called 4th industrial revolution promising a much more flexible and automated factory work floor, we may soon see increasing levels of simple traditional electronics incorporated into soft things in our everyday lives (Andersen and Berzowska 2006). In the Wearable Senses lab (Tomico et al. 2014), however, we believe that the future of soft wearables is now expanding to include programing not just electronics and interactive behavior but programming the whole garment in terms of its material, its form, its manufacture, its level of personalization, associated services, and its direct relation to both its user and the social, cultural, and economic structures around it. In the following, we will provide an overview of projects created in or were done in collaboration with the Wearable Senses lab over the last seven years. We know these projects intimately as we have seen them built, tested, worn, analyzed, and repaired. By looking through these projects, we see the levels of complexity in the manner in which they each relate to the data in and around their own production and designs. The three levels are the product level, the system level, and the service level.