Panel Statement
Panel: Borders and interfaces: the challenges of the wearable computer’s design in the near future
This paper identifies themes in wearable technology practices within the context of research in universities and art and design schools as well as industrial laboratories to suggest opportunities for concentration of efforts and international collaboration. Research using biometric data, heart rate monitors, embedded sensors, blue tooth and mobile networks, conductive threads, soft circuitry, smart textiles and shape metals and other adaptive fabrics occur at sites in around the world. Where are these? Secondly, the paper begins to map these research efforts to the potential of take-up by adopters (fashion designers, healthcare, and security services as examples). Finally it suggests some opportunities for collaboration and points to strategies needed to bridge the gap between research or art and design prototyping and large-scale adoption.
- Sara Diamond is the President of the OCAD University, Canada’s “university of the imagination”. She holds a PhD in Computer Science and degrees in new media theory and practice, social history and communications. While retaining OCAD University’s traditional strengths in art and design, she has led her university to become a leader in digital media and design research and curriculum through the Digital Futures Initiative, towards new research in Inclusive Design and health and design, as well as in sustainable technologies and design. She has also led OCAD University to begin the unique Aboriginal Visual Culture Program. She is co-principle investigator on the Centre for Information Visualization/Data Driven Design, an OCADU/York University major initiative. She is co-chair of the Mobile Experience Innovation Centre. Diamond was the Artistic Director of Media and Visual Art and Director of Research at the Banff Centre, where she created the Banff New Media Institute (BNMI) in 1995 and led it until 2005. Diamond developed codezebra.net , a performance and media art, fashion and data visualization software collaboration environment. Diamond continues to write about digital media history, data visualization, mobile experience design, digital media and design strategy for peer reviewed journals and curates for festivals and galleries.
Full text (PDF) p. 622-629