About:
CuteCircuit is a fashion company based in London that designs interactive clothing. CuteCircuit products are innovative intelligent clothing that integrate new functionalities into fashion through the use of smart textiles and micro electronics. CuteCircuit is the first company to merge wearable and telecommunication technology to create emotionally rich experiences for users in the fashion, sport and communication industries.
One of Cute Circuit’s products, the Hug Shirt, was honored as one of the Best Inventions of The Year by Time Magazine. This same product was also awarded the First Prize at Ciberart Festival in Bilbao, Spain. CuteCircuit work is frequently featured in books on design, art and innovation, publications include: World Changing, Fashioning the Future, Smart Materials in Design, Fashion and Architecture, Sex Design, and Designing for Interaction. Many of CuteCircuit products have also been published on magazines and newspapers worldwide, such as TIME Magazine, ELLE, Design Matters, Stuff, WIRED, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, the Financial Times, and CNN. CuteCircuit was featured in the special issue on the American Avant Garde by Surface Magazine. The recent book Fashionable Technology, prominently features all of CuteCircuit’s work to date.
Interviews with founders Francesca Rosella and Ryan Genz have been featured on Discovery Channel International, National Geographic Television, BBC World Technology, BBC Live at Five, BBC Go-Digital, National Japanese Television. They speak worldwide on the subjects of innovation and the future of fashion and design in events such as Gravity Free Design and Innovation Conference, Smart Textiles Conference in Washington DC (USA) and Rome, Italy, Aventex and Techtextil in Frankfurt and top universities and research institutes worldwide.
CuteCircuit products have been exhibited at WIRED NextFest for two consecutive years in New York City and Los Angeles, and at ‘Tomorrow’s Textiles’ at the Science Museum in London, SIGGRAPH, Design and Emotion Conference, International Symposium of Wearable Computing, ‘How Smart are We?’ at RIBA, Nordic Exceptional Trendshop in Denmark and CTIA Wireless in Las Vegas. CuteCircuit’s latest creation, the Galaxy Dress, the largest wearable display in the world, is currently on show at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago as part of the FastForward exhibition and has been acquired for the museum’s permanent collection as well.
-----------------------------------
The GalaxyDress
The GalaxyDress designed by CuteCircuit which is on display in the FastForward gallery at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX9FOGFxN9AAccessory Nerve
Accessory Nerve is a Bluetooth mono-sleeve accessory for mobile phones that changes pattern (creating pleats on the fabric) when a user receives phone calls.
The system
The wearer recognizes the sender from the pattern the pleats create when receiving an incoming call. If the user is in a meeting or busy can simply flatten the pleats back into the original position, automatically the caller will receive a text message saying “I’ll call you back later”. The Accessory Nerve allows users to exchange information and greetings in a subtle and intimate way.
Research
Wear your thoughts on your sleeve. A-Nerve started as a collaboration between Ryan Genz of CuteCircuit and Interaction Designer Line Ulrika Christiansen, and continues to be developed at CuteCircuit. Accessory Nerve allows users to communicate with friends through a novel textile visual language, combining smart textiles and telecommunication technology.
Process
Research, Concept, Prototype, User Testing
-----------------------------------
The Hug Shirt
The Hug Shirt™ is a shirt that makes people send hugs over distance! Embedded in the shirt there are sensors that feel the strength of the touch, the skin warmth and the heartbeat rate of the sender and actuators that recreate the sensation of touch, warmth and emotion of the hug to the shirt of the distant loved one.
The Hug Shirt™ has been nominated as one of the best Inventions of 2006 by Time Magazine!
Here is a sneak preview of the new Hug Shirt™ that was presented at Wired NextFest in New York last month. Stay tuned on this page for a complete update and new images later this week!
How does it work?
The Hug Shirt™ is a Bluetooth accessory for Java enabled mobile phones. Hug Shirt™s don’t have any assigned phone number, all the data goes from the sensors Bluetooth to your mobile phone and your mobile phone delivers the hug data to your friend’s phone and it is seamlessly transmitted Bluetooth to his or her shirt!
Sending hugs is as easy as sending an SMS and you will be able to send hugs while you are on the move, in the same way and to the same places you are able to make phone calls (Rome to Tokyo, New York to Paris).
The system is very simple: a Hug Shirt™ (Bluetooth with sensors and actuators), a Bluetooth java enabled mobile phone with the HugMe™ java software running (it understands what the sensors are communicating), and on the other side another phone and another shirt. If you do not have a Hug Shirt™ but know that your friend has one you can still send them a hug creating it with the HugMe™ software and it will be delivered to your friend’s Hug Shirt™!
The Hug Shirt™ can be washed. The smart technology pads (containing sensors and actuators), placed under each red area that you see in the picture, can be removed for washing and placed back in afterwards. The Hug pads are plug and play, so that you don’t need to be an expert to place them and make it work! The Hug Shirt™s are available in many colors, so that you can move the smart pads from shirt to shirt and remain fashionable.
When touching the red areas on your Hug Shirt™ your mobile phone receives the sensors data via Bluetooth (hug pressure, skin temperature, heartbeat rate, time you are hugging for, etc) and then delivers it to the other person.
The hugs shirt is Bluetooth and works with mobile phones on any bandwidth (900 Mhz, 1800 Mhz and so on). Runs on rechargeable batteries. The Hug Shirt™ is built using RoHS components, it means that the Hug Shirt™ is lead-free and non-toxic.
Here below is an image of the Hug Shirt™, presented at SIGGraph in 2005. Images of the new Hug Shirt™ presented at Wired NextFest 2006 and as featured on Time Magazine will be available here soon!
Why the Hug Shirt™?
The Hug Shirt™ is not meant to replace human contact, but to make you happy if you are away for business or other reasons and you miss your friends and loved ones! It also has some very interesting applications in the medical field with the elderly and children. And is fun to use and very soft!
Interfaces and systems must be intuitive, natural, and compatible with our emotional status. Combining emotion and technology should be part of every design process. An increasing mobility of humans throughout the globe, due to business or study reasons, has brought family members to spend most of their time apart from each other. Humans need physical contact with each other. Technology should allow for a pleasant Human-Human Interaction.
Adults, especially elderly people living far away from their families, deprived of tactile contact for a long period of time will tell you just how depressing it feels. A hug, a handshake, a pat on the back, and a kiss are all very important and bring us close to others. People need to be touched at least 70 times a day! Start noticing how many times you shake hands or hug a friend, and you will see that it really makes you feel good, and if you didn’t get enough hugs give us a call and come visit!
Users designed it too!
We involved users in participatory design sessions from the early stage of the design process. This technique allows for faster refining of concepts and prototypes and gives the possibility to bring desirable products to market in a shorter time and with better results.
We also developed a taxonomy of hugs! Hugs come from people that take care of us: mothers, sisters, fathers, grandparents, friends. A hug makes us perceive the tangible presence of the other person, the closeness contributes a sensation of warmth and relaxed harmony. During the hug positive natural chemicals get released within our body, our blood pressure regularizes, and stress soothes. Rhythmic hugs to let a child fall asleep produce soft vibrations that resonate and calm.
Additional bodystorming (people hugging for a long time :) sessions were done at every stage of the design process. Users tried various kinds of textiles and materials such as sponges, balloons and the likes, wearing them on their body, inside their clothes or outside existing ones. During the hugging sessions we mapped the position of people hands on the others body. Major intensity points were identified on upper arms, on the upper back part of the torso, around the waistline, neck, shoulders, and hips. In these strategic spots, now the red areas, we placed our soft technological pads containing the hugging output actuators.
-----------------------------------
Kinetic DressKineticDress is a Victorian inspired evening gown reactive to the wearer’s activities and mood.
The system
The KineticDress is sewn of an elastic textile embedded with sensors that follows closely the body of the wearer. The sensors are able to capture the wearer’s movements and interaction with others and display this data through the electroluminescent embroidery that covers the external skirt section of the dress. Depending on the amount and speed of the wearer’s movement the electroluminescent embroidery changes pattern, displaying the wearer’s mood to the audience and creating a magic halo around her.The algorithmic program that controls the KineticDress is designed to follow the pace of the wearer: a still pose, when sitting alone shows a black dress, when the wearer starts moving and interacting with others the dress slowly lights up with a blue-circles pattern that moving creates a magic halo around the wearer.
Research
The KineticDress is part of the TransforMe collection developed for the NEMO Science Museum event How Smart Are You Dressed Tomorrow? held in Amsterdam on November 6th 2004. The Transfor-Me collection was developed to demonstrate how the combination of interaction design and smart textiles can change the field of fashion design adding meaning and playfulness to commonly used garments such as skirts and dresses. Additionally transformable and interactive garments changing their appearance through the day or during any activity of the wearer stimulates personal interaction and communication.
Process
Research, Concept, Prototype, user testing
-----------------------------------
Skirteleon
Skirteleon (skirt chameleon): this skirt changes color and pattern according to the wearer’s activities and mood.
The system
The Skirteleon is manufactured with a context aware laminated textile that changes color on-demand, upon user interaction or alternatively during the course of a predefined time period. The Skirteleon primary color state is blue, but upon user interaction could present diverse colors and patterns. When a user interacts with the Skirteleon, through touch or preprogramming, the fabric color changes from blue to animal characters or geometric patterns both red on a white background. The garment is designed to allow a user to transform her style during the course of a day out, allowing for easily adapting to different contexts and situations, such as work meetings, a walk in the city, a night out, enhancing the style of the wearer.
Research
Skirteleon is part of the TransforMe collection developed for the NEMO Science Museum event How Smart Are You Dressed Tomorrow? held in Amsterdam on November 6th 2004. The Transfor-Me collection was developed to demonstrate how the combination of interaction design and smart textiles can change the field of fashion design adding meaning and playfulness to commonly used garments such as skirts and dresses. Additionally transformable and interactive garments changing their appearance through the day or during any activity of the wearer stimulates personal interaction and communication.
Process
The Skirteleon is a playful solution designed for busy and active women that need to rush between meetings and be efficient during the day, but also like to look stylish and fresh if an early dinner appointment does not allow to go home and change.
-----------------------------------
Mystique
Mystique (the shape shifter): this dress changes shape and length during the course of an evening. While in the beginning the dress is pale gray, knee length and has a soft padded surface, at the end of the night it becomes long and smooth, revealing a new color.
The system
The Mystique dress reaches 5 main positions during the elongation process. In the morning is knee length, then the top half starts unfolding very slowly until the whole dress reaches the ground, that happens in 4 steps. The color change happens because the dress is a fabric cylinder folded inside-out. When is short and folded shows the grey side and when unfolds reveals the red side of the fabric. The fabric is embroidered with mother of pearl, metallic sequins and small magnets. When the dress is folded the magnets hold the metallic sequins, and when the timer reaches the specific hour these magnets release the sequin they were holding and the fabric unfolds.
Research
Mystique is part of the TransforMe collection developed for the NEMO Science Museum event How Smart Are You Dressed Tomorrow? held in Amsterdam on November 6th 2004. The Transfor-Me collection was developed to demonstrate how the combination of interaction design and smart textiles can change the field of fashion design adding meaning and playfulness to commonly used garments such as skirts and dresses. Additionally transformable and interactive garments changing their appearance through the day or during any activity of the wearer stimulates personal interaction and communication.
The aesthetic appearance of the Mystique dress is inspired by the fascinating long evening gowns from the 40s and 50s seen in black and white movies. It is really rare to see women wearing long dresses, there is this idea that the occasion must be exceedingly formal to dare wear one. With mystique we wanted to give women the opportunity to transform into a sophisticated lady without feeling “guilty” because the dress is preprogrammed and you cannot stop it!
Process
Research, Concept, Prototype, User Testing
No comments:
Post a Comment