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Digital Salon Artists’ Statements 439 regrowth, rebirth, and survival despite technology. Each image in the series contains an ultrasound image of a growing fetus, strong in its desire to persevere and grow using the natural energy that surrounds it. Despite the wonders of medical technology such as the sonogram, it cannot rival the optimal conditions that the womb provides for the fetus. There is no better place for the baby’s first nine months than in the safety of its mother’s body. Technology can aid, but cannot replace, the inherent force of survival found in nature. Even if technology ends human existence, such as in a nuclear holocaust, some form of nature will persist. It is this desire to persevere that is mimicked in the vein-like roots and vines of trees—the force of nature (the trees) and humans (the fetus) to survive with, or perhaps in spite of, technology. ELISE CO Halo and Perforation The fabled battle between “left brain” and “right brain”— “creative” vs. “analytical”—is fiction. The idea that creativity exists separately from rationality, or that art is opposed to science and technology, makes no sense in a world where creativity drives technology forward and computation becomes a medium in which to design. A digital artist cannot merely be a conceptualizer , a visionary who hands sketches to behind-the-scenes engineers in order to make imagination real. Knowledge of the medium and technological craft are key to understanding computation and technology, not as tools, but as artistic media. My goal is to design and create ambidextrously, using computational knowledge, technological skill, and aesthetic sensibilities to realize personal concepts in body-self-society relationships. Every day we make conscious decisions about what we look like through our clothing. Fashion exists as a means of creating an outward appearance that reflects something about the individual, whether it is identification with a cultural movement such as punk rock, economic status as a wealthy businessman, or a personal weakness for the color magenta. The things we wear relate our bodies and our personalities to the things around us, and are extremely personal systems that we construct with deliberation and care. In my recent work I attempt to expand the field of fashion through an informed use of computation and to demonstrate that a synthesis of fashion and technology can be beautiful and provocative. What modes of expression can be realized through technology? How does computation on the body affect the way we think of ourselves related to society, to those around us, to those far away from us? How can computational clothing address the concepts of constructed image, personal environment, and social communication? What are wearable, beautiful things made possible through electronics? Halo (http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/elise/halo) is a system for implicitly controllable, reconfigurable, and programmable garments. Incorporating hardware, software, and physical design, Halo eschews the notion that electronic fashion is about cyborgs, stock quotes, or e-mail. Instead it uses computation and technology as expressive, dynamic elements of fashion. Halo units are small glowing pebbles that can be joined using variable-length connectors. Each unit has its own rhythm, which can be modified or passed to neighboring units through the connectors . As a wearer constructs a garment (belt, peplum, etc.), she builds both the physical form and a structure through which light rhythms flow from one unit to the next. When a new input rhythm is passed to the garment, it passes through the network of Halo units, changing as it flows from one unit to the next. Like water flowing through pebbles, a single input rhythm evolves into a more complex set of rhythms based on both the original input and the Halo configuration. This play between how much the wearer controls the garment and how much the garment develops its own behavior defines a new type of garment that is malleable yet autonomous. Custom software written for the Palm Pilot lets a user create rhythms and send them via infrared to Halo, including a Halo worn by someone else. This wireless capability introduces elements of interaction among a collection of people. Other sources of rhythm input could include sensors (heartbeat, walking pace...

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