Architect and interaction designer Behnaz Farahi has created a 3d printed wearable, ‘that provokes a sort of modern day mating ritual by detecting and then reacting to other people’s gaze with organic, life-like movements’.For Caress of the Gaze, Farahi designed a top of 3d printed spikes and brought along a camera with a facial recognition software. When the person in front of you looks at different points, the top is set in motion. In the future, men will probably think twice before they start to stare ‘unnoticed’ to someone’s breasts.
”Our skin is constantly in motion. It expands, contracts and changes its shape based on various internal/ external stimuli including not only temperature and moisture but also feelings, such as fear, excitement and anger. What if our clothing could behave as an artificial skin capable of changing its shape and operating as an interface with the world defining social issues such as intimacy, gender and even personal identities? (Fahari, B)”.
This project therefore addresses the emerging field of shape changing structures and interactive systems that bridges the worlds of fashion, art, technology and design.
For me the top has very much alike the skin of a hedgehog. If a hedgehog hears or sees something unexpected, he turns the spines on his head to the top, pulling his shoulder and keep the muzzle down. The spiky ball is a good protection against natural enemies. The 3d spikes protect so to speak, also the body of a woman. You know immediately where the men look at and it restrains them next time.
On Farahi’s website she tells: ‘it engages with a series of issues’. Firstly, it demonstrates how the very latest and most advanced 3D printing technologies might contribute to the realm of fashion. Secondly, it explores the potential of an actuation system and thirdly, it investigates how our clothing could interact with other people as a primary interface using computer vision technologies.
This project has a link with the trend mutable fashion: ‘new manufacturing techniques paired with digital technologies are allowing the styles people wear to make an even more dynamic statement about them, bringing elements of interactivity, adaptivity and movement to the latest fashions’ (PSFK).
You can read more about the issues on her website: http://behnazfarahi.prosite.com/204244/7618948/gallery/caress-of-the-gaze
Other sources:
http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/nl/blog/dit-3d-geprinte-topje-weet-precies-wanneer-jij-kijkt
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