Archive for the 'Events' Category

For the 4th year running Intertech Pira is organizing the Smart Fabrics conference between May 5-7 in Charleston, South Carolina, US.

Intertech Pira’s Smart Fabric conference is the most significant event of the year for the Wearable Electronic community and business.

A long list of high profile speaker from leading Wearable Electronic companies and pioneers of wearable technologies will attract visitors from around the globe to get up-to-date information on the latest trends and technologies in the e-textile sector as well as the Interactive Fashion market.

A focus point of the conference will be the business issues facing the industry, including market size, commercialization and business challenges, potential for growth, technological advances and hurdles, application trends, design considerations, and production economics.

The 3 day event will kick off on the first day with 4 seminars held by Torsten Linz from Frauenhofer Institute about ‘Integration Technologies for Electronics in Textiles‘, Jukka VanHala from Tampere University of Electronics about ‘Understanding and Working with Wearable Technology‘, Tom Martin from Virginia Tech about ‘The Latest Developments in E-textile-based Wearable Computing‘ and Clive Van Heerden from Philips Design about ‘From Intelligent to Sensitive – ‘Soft Technology’ Applications for Real People‘.

The second and third day is reserved for speakers from the academia, industry and business. Presentations from Wearable Electronic trend setters like Maggie Orth, Mortiz Waldemeyer, Leah Buechley and Janet Hansen, to name a few, will ensure a high quality event. A complete speaker list can be found via this link.

At the end of the first day a panel discussion on ‘commercializing smart fabrics’ invites conference attendees to actively join the the discussion.

Based on the speaker list and topics covered, the Smart Fabrics 2008 will be the most interesting and direction setting event of Wearable Electronic in 2008.

Bookmark to:

Building on the last workshop: Designing Hybrid Wearables, Mediamatic organizes an advanced wearable course from Apr. 15 to 18 in Oosterdokskade 5, Amsterdam: Wearables Master Class - Design the symbiosis of digital components and clothing

Trainers, lecturers & assistants for this workshop: Leah Buechley, Maurin Donneaud, Vincent Roudaut, Anouk Wipprecht and Dirk van Oosterbosch.

This highly creative team is not just talking about pimping clothing - they are investigating the electronic extrapolation of the role of clothing and fashion.

Integrating advanced technology into clothing that gives added value, that extends the function of clothing.

One of those advanced technologies is without question Leah Buechley’s e-textile construction kit LilyPad Arduino which will be at the center of the action. Besides the LilyPad there will be Bluetooth- and regular Arduino’s available as workshop material as well as a collection of sensors and actuators.

The workshop is designed for a maximum of 16 computer scientists, fashion designers, hardware hackers, fabric experts, product developers or media-makers.

As this is a Master Class only people with experience and/or a very thorough understanding of electronics and relevant experience with design processes will be accepted. When you are not sure about your qualification you can contact the organizer on mediamatic.net

To get tuned into the Master Class Workshop have a look at the creativity of the last one: Designing Hybrid Wearables which was co-organized by Dana Gordon interaction designer and artist and Jean-Baptiste Labrune PhD student in interaction design in INRIA and University Paris Sud in France.

The flickr stream from Jean-Baptiste shows the creative fun the group had during the Workshop.

The workshop presentation Jean-Baptiste send us (a big Thank You) contains the creative process and the projects that have been build during the Designing Hybrid Wearables workshop. Click the button below to download the presentation (pdf format).

Downloaded a total of 60 times

Bookmark to:

Why Sewing and Knitting still matter is the topic of a high profile panel discussion which is part of the SXSW Interactive Festival on Saturday, March 9th from 3:30 - 4:30pm in Austin’s Convention Center.

Traditional crafts such as knitting and sewing are surging in popularity thanks to the growing Do-It-Yourself (DIY) movement. But living in the 21st Century these traditional and almost unchanged techniques undergo a radical transformation.

From soft circuits and mathematical knitting to fashion technology and wearable computing, two up to now fundamental different technologies like weaving, knitting and sewing one one hand and electronic on the other hand are being fused to create a new dimension where fashion becomes technological and technology becomes fashion.

These 21st Century crafters on the panel not only promote the notion of DIY, they are using technology to create a new dimension in fashion and personal electronics.

The panel discussion will be moderated by Natalie Zee Drieu, Senior Editor for CRAFT Magazine. She writes for the CRAFT blog at craftzine.com

Joining her on the panel:
Syuzi Pakhchyan - her MFA thesis titled “SparkLab” investigates the intersection between culture, technology and craft.
Alison Lewis - producer and host of SWITCH, an online blog that showcases technology as modern, crafty, fun, and fashionable.
Mouna Andraos - designer and artist working on interactive objects and installations as well as in web, electronics and video.
Diana Eng - fashion designer who designs with technology, math and science.

To find out more about the new trend of high-tech crafting and how these women look to technology and science for inspiration head over to Austin if you can and follow this panel discussion.

[via: Coquette]

Bookmark to:

Designing Hybrid Wearables is an action-packed three day workshop organized by Mediamatic, Jean-Baptiste Labrune and Dana Gordon will look at clothes and jewelery and their potential as personal mobile platforms for social interaction.

Held between Feb. 19-21, 2008 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, this is one of the first workshops in Europe around the Lilypad Arduino from Leah Buechley, designed especially for use in wearables.

The workshop is about Wearables, merging what you wear with (communication) technology, the increasingly intimate fusion of digital and physical space. More and more object are being connected to networks, and become carriers, collectors, and transmitters of various kinds of data.

It will be investigated the electronic extrapolation of the role of clothing and fashion, transferring possibilities of communication devices to clothing, where they may find a more natural home.

A product we introduced a few days ago, the G-Cell glove from Swany shows that this merge of technology and function/fashion is already happening today.

This workshop will investigate for example clothes as media, social possibilities of RFID technology, new conductive materials, and more.

This workshop is targeted towards computer scientists, fashion designers, hardware hackers, art students, fabric experts, product developers or media-makers.

Because of the technical level of this workshop and the limited amount of time (3 days) it is important that the participants have the right skill sets: a basic understanding of electronics and / or relevant experience with design processes. When in doubt if you are fit to follow this action loaded workshop, please contact the organizer at mediamatic.net and get their advice.

More details about the organization, location map and registration can be found by www.mediamatic.net

Bookmark to:

Threads: Wearable Art Fashion Show is presented by _gaia in conjunction with Jersey City Museum. The show will take place at the Jersey City Museum on Sunday, February 24th, 2008.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will highlight the work of 20 artists and designers who are combining non-traditional materials and/or technology to create wearable designs.

Despina Papadopoulos, interactive designer and director of Studio 5050 who specializes in developing concepts and inventing applications for wearable computing will give a talk about her work which has appeared in museums and galleries around the world.

She will be joined by Nora Abousteit and Benedikta von Karaisl, the founders of BurdaStyle.com. The website they created is a destination for sharing clothing patterns, step-by-step fashion making instructions, a passionate do-it-yourself community and even a wiki called Sewpedia for all things related to fabrics and fashions.

In the afternoon session a Runway show will showcase the work of a diverse group of artists and designers incorporating various media including painting, physical computing technologies, crochet, sculpture, textile, video, and performance into their wearable designs. Some of the projects featured are: a portable mobile telephone booth, an integrated system of shoes and online services for the safety of sex workers, user powered illuminated jewelry, a death shroud, and everyday life vests.

All in all a very interesting program we can only recommend to visit.

Bookmark to:

This Wednesday, January 30, fashionistas and techies will come together in Boston’s Museum of Science where SEAMLESS takes place, a fashion show that fuses cutting-edge style with the latest advances in technology.

20 selected, emerging designer teams from around the globe will send down the catwalk ‘computational couture’ that push the boundaries of wearable technology.

Models wearing interactive clothing will strut to live media performances by video artists Sosolimited and DJs Eddie O and Mike Uzzi of Zero G Sounds. Following the fashion show, the evening evolves into a living exhibition, where guests have an opportunity to view the featured designs up-close and meet the designers.

My personal favorite is the Sun Dress by Valérie La Montagne with Lynn Van Gastel, Patrice Coulombe and David Beaulieu (Montreal) which will be part of the fashion show.

The Sun dress displays light in motion based on changes in the sun. The dress has a checkerboard of LEDs (light emitting diodes) integrated which will be set in motion based on UV and sun intensity readings.

The greater the intensity of the sun, the brighter the dress will glow, much like the sun itself. The more UV rays outside, the more the dress’ LEDs will flash, like a warning/danger sign.

Changing patterns of the fully addressable LEDs enable to graphically represent the rising and setting sun as well as the changing direction of the sunrays.

A fairytale like description of this truly interactive fashion dress. But it remains unreachable as this is a one-of-a-kind model and not up for sale like all the other dresses on this show.

Another interesting item on stage will be FRISSON, a temperature changing necklace created by Vincent Lecler for ESKI.

A complete list of featured designers and their designs is available at mos.org and at seamless.sigtronica.org.

If you have time and are around the Boston area drop by and check out the Computational Couture at Seamless v.3

Bookmark to:

IntertechPira’s Smart and Intelligent Textiles Conference takes place coming Tuesday and Wednesday (Dec 11+12) in Prague.

This is the last event in 2007 about Wearable Electronic and Intelligent Textiles, enabling you to meet and network with experts as well as getting the latest insights from companies like The North Face, Navispace, The University of Reading, Finetex Technologies, BASF AG, Coatema AG to name a few.

Highly interesting will be the presentation from Angel Chang with her view of high fashion design and wearable technologies.

If you are around Prague this week or get a last minute ticket to Prague, the Smart and Intelligent Textiles Conference will be a interesting place - besides talk2myShirt - to be and catch up on the newest developments in the Smart and Intelligent Textiles business.

Bookmark to:

In case you haven’t heard of the last big event for Wearable Electronics in 2007: the Smart and Intelligent Textiles Conference held in conjunction with the Nanotextiles conference takes place in Prague between Dec. 10-12.

This 3 day event is organized by IntertechPira and brings together leading experts from fashion design, branding, research and manufacturing. More information about the conference can be found by follow this link.

A diverse mix of high profile speakers makes this conference the perfect meeting point, opening up opportunities to get the latest insights into Wearable Electronic and gives plenty of room for networking with the speaker and participants.

The Nanotextiles and Smart and Intelligent Textiles conference is just one month away and you might consider signing up to ensure a place in this high profile event.

We can offer you as special service in conjunction with IntertechPira a 15% discount on the conference fee if you quote ‘talk2myShirt’ during registration. It’s our Christmas gift to our dear readers.

Bookmark to: