[ISEA2011] Panel: Valérie La­m­on­tagne – Open De­sign Prac­tices, Ma­te­ri­al­ity and DIY Wear­ables @ 3lec­tro­mode

Panel Statement

Panel: Open Culture + Wearables

This paper and pre­sen­ta­tion will in­ves­ti­gate the no­tion of open de­sign within the prac­tice of DIY wear­ables and the on­line/cus­tomiza­tion ini­tia­tives of 3lec­tro­mode and other de­sign col­lec­tives in the field of fash­ion and tech­nol­ogy. By look­ing at how tech­nolo­gies are fa­cil­i­tat­ing ac­cess, net­works and small pro­duc­tion lines I aim to re­veal the chang­ing cre­ative and pro­duc­tion prac­tices of fash­ion and tech­nol­ogy from a pure in­dus­tri­al­ized vs. craft-based one, to a so­phis­ti­cated, high-tech and net­worked 21st cen­tury cot­tage in­dus­try. Fur­ther­more, an em­pha­sis on the open de­sign prin­ci­ples ap­plied to tex­tile ma­te­r­ial prac­tices that can be adopted to sus­tain and en­hance this field will be ad­dressed. 3lec­tro­mode holds the vi­sion of in­no­vat­ing in the field of wear­ables by com­bin­ing tech­nol­ogy with cus­tomiz­able prêt-â-porter fash­ion. We aim to in­spire a fu­ture where wear­ables are de­moc­ra­tized, aes­theti­cized, and per­for­ma­tive. We are a small de­sign stu­dio in­ter­ested in de­vel­op­ing ac­ces­si­ble wear­ables, which com­bine DIY tech­nol­ogy with cur­rent fash­ion re­search. We are fas­ci­nated with the po­ten­tial for tech­nol­ogy to cre­ate new modal­i­ties of in­ter­ac­tion be­tween the body and its en­vi­ron­ment, and are in­ter­ested in the per­for­ma­tive po­ten­tial of tech­nol­ogy. Key to our de­sign ethos is a to cre­ate a li­brary of open sourced tools which can be eas­ily ac­cessed, in­ter­preted and used by any­one. We de­velop wear­ables, which we hope will be mean­ing­ful to the wear­ers by en­rich­ing every­day ex­pe­ri­ences with an aware­ness of both our­selves and the world around us. We see our work as cre­at­ing a fur­ther con­nec­tion be­tween hu­mans and the world at large of ma­chines, in­for­ma­tion pat­terns, en­vi­ron­men­tal data, and or­ganic ma­te­r­ial. 3lectromode.com

  • Valérie La­m­on­tagne [1968-2019] was a dig­i­tal media de­signer-artist, the­o­rist and cu­ra­tor re­search­ing techno-artis­tic frame­works that com­bine human/non­hu­man agen­cies. Look­ing at the rich prac­tice of per­for­mance art, so­cial in­ter­ven­tion and in­ter­ac­tive in­stal­la­tions – she is in­vested in de­vel­op­ing re­spon­sive ob­jects (specif­i­cally wear­ables) and in­ter­ac­tive media sce­nar­ios which in­ter­lope the pub­lic-at-large, the en­vi­ron­ment and mat­ter as “per­former”. ??She is the Founder and Di­rec­tor of 3lec­tro­mode, a de­sign stu­dio in­vested in de­vel­op­ing wear­ables that com­bine D-I-Y tech­nol­ogy with cur­rent fash­ion re­search. Her work has been show­cased in fes­ti­vals, gal­leries and mu­se­ums across Canada, the United States, Cen­tral and South Amer­ica and Eu­rope. She holds a BFA and MFA in vi­sual arts and is presently a PhD can­di­date at Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­sity in­ves­ti­gat­ing “Per­for­ma­tiv­ity, Ma­te­ri­al­ity and Lab­o­ra­tory Prac­tices in Artis­tic Wear­ables” where she teaches in the De­part­ment of De­sign & Com­pu­ta­tion Arts.
    valerielamontagne.com

Full text (PDF) p. 1456-1461