2020-2022
Wearable Technology
Made with: Processing, Illustrator, Scuba Knit
Made with: Processing, Illustrator, Scuba Knit
“#GEN” reimagines how the process of garment design and production in the future can align and reflect the impact of social media and its influence on the socio-cultural environment in modern day China. Today’s Chinese youths need to navigate complex cultural landscapes in balancing contemporary and traditional ideologies. Their longing for unique self-expression is reflected in their use of social media and their choice of clothing. However, neither social media nor fashion is a value-free area. Online posts are constantly being filtered by algorithms, the clothes Chinese youth are wearing—no matter school uniforms or domestic streetwear fashion—are also regulated by institutions. Chinese youth’s sense of self and the larger socio-cultural environment intertwine in dynamic and unexpected ways in both the virtual and the physical spheres, and this intermingling is played out on the body through fashion trends and choices. “#GEN” aims to explore these complex issues through a wearable technology art installation that extracts emotional data from an individual’s personal story expressed through social media posts, visualizes this data through software that simulates both intrinsic and extrinsic filtering process, and uses the generated patterns to create customized clothing. Through their interactions with the project, participants are led to think critically about the makeup of their identity and how competing factors in both their digital and physical realities play a role in this evolving process.
Design Diagram
This project consists of software design and physical fabrication.
Software Design
Circle Packing
Pixel Sorting
The software 1) analyzes text-based data of users’ personal story to identify emotional, cultural, and social key words used that indicates the make-up of their identity, and 2) implements data visualization through circle packing and pixel sorting algorithms that generates a visual language that speaks to the user’s virtual identity expression under self- and social filtering.
Physical Fabrication
The pattern is printed on garments 1) as the body is a medium that connects both the virtual and physical worlds in reflecting identities from both sides, and 2) the fabrication process of making customized clothes that visualize wearer’s online and offline identities suggests new possibility of garment and fashion design approaches that are computational-aided.
Documentation
“#GEN” allows users catch a glimpse of a possible future when people can wear clothes that speak to both their virtual and physical identity, making visible the invisible social and cultural factors that shape and evolve their identity construct through real-time interaction and data analysis. It also imagines a new way of designing and creating clothing with computationally aided processes that reflect the influence of digital tools and realities on traditional processes.
2021
LOGO & Branding
Made with: Illustrator, Dimension
Made with: Illustrator, Dimension
LOGO
It is a set of logos designed for “#GEN.” “#” is the symbol of a hashtag, representing social media. “GEN” is an abbreviation which represents “generation,” “generative (design)” and also “gender.” Logos and adaptations are designed to present the young, futuristic and individualized characteristics of my thesis.
Branding
This is a branding system of #GEN that presents the adaptation of logos on different products (package, pin, phone grip, phone and laptop cases) that are relevant to people’s virtual and physical identity expression.