Final Project Concept (Week 10 +11)

Project Description

I am interested in how the future of connectedness not only in regards to technology but the interpersonal connections that we are currently experiencing in the digital realm, with the likes of social media, can be furthered in a physical space.

I propose a speculative wearable that allows for an interpersonal connectedness to our environment. I was fascinated after reading an article about how trees use mycorrhizal fungi to communicate through underground networks. This communication allows a network of trees to send warning signals about environmental change, search for kin, and transfer nutrients to neighboring plants before they die. This is similar to how neural networks in the human brain work.

This line a questioning has led to interpreting how a possible future of society would derive if humans could communicate through similar networks, a network of nonverbal intuitive intercommunication. The uses for this could have further applications should as physical and psychological therapies.

Interaction/systems diagram

Within this speculative future, society uses this product as a dominant form of communication and thus it is embedded within all manufactured garments. Communication is intuitive and each garment is identical to the next.

There are two primary functions: 1) a haptic feedback system for nonverbal cues and 2) a communication module that allows one to send, receive, and respond to signals.

When a person wears this garment that is connected to a wireless network and is feeling stressed they can send out an anonymous signal to one person connected to the network. The person may respond to that signal and send out an action to comfort the sender. This action is more poetic in nature and speaks to the psychological therapy of knowing someone cares for your well being. The actions taken correspond to the back haptic motors in the garment. The command sent could be either an embrace where all the motors over the torso are activated or simple modularly such as a stroking sensation.

The first sketches represent an alternative idea when the whole body would detach. This has since involved into a modular interface attached to the sleeve.