Scent By A Wireless Web

‘Scent Whisper’ is a jewellery project that provides a new way to send a scented message. The two pieces focus on a spider and the defence mechanism in bombardier beetles that squirt predators with a high-pressure jet of boiling liquid in a rapid-fire action. The devices involve microfluidics and wireless technology that link a remote sensor (a spider) with a fragrance-dispensing unit (a bombardier beetle) to create two items of jewellery that constitute the ‘wireless web’.

A message is ‘scent by a wireless web’’ from a spider to a bombardier beetle brooch, that sprays a minute sample of fragrance. The purpose is to benefit human wellbeing, through olfaction stimulation of the autonomic nervous system, and as a novel communication system to send an aroma ‘message’ that could be healing (lavender), protective (insect repellent), seductive (pheromones) informative or communicative. The user whispers a secret message into a spider brooch, which transmits the message to a beetle brooch worn by an admirer. The spider’s sensor, implanted in its abdomen records the humidity of her breath and releases scent from the beetle onto a localized area, creating a personal ‘scent bubble’.

About this conference:

Wearable Futures was an interdisciplinary conference, aiming to bring together practitioners, inventors, and theorists in the field of soft technology and wearables including those concerned with fashion, textiles, sportswear, interaction design, media and live arts, medical textiles, wellness, perception and psychology, IPR, polymer science, nanotechnology, military, and other relevant research strands.

Examining how some broad generic questions could be explored in relation to wearable technology the conference referred to but was not restricted to: aesthetics and design, function and durability versus market forces; the desires, needs and realities of wearable technologies; technology and culture; simplicity and sustainability; design for wearability; wearables as theatre and wearables as emotional 'tools'. Wearable Futures actively aimed to encourage debate, discussion and the formation of collaborative projects across a wide range of disciplines.
Key fundamental questions across the conference in relation to wearables were:
What is out there?
Who wants it?
What do they want?
How is it achieved?

Keynotes were drawn from the field of fashion and textiles through Suzanne Lee and Sarah E. Braddock Clarke; interactive design through Chris Baber; and design and computational arts through Joanna Berzowska. These diverse speakers provided an overview for the wide range of papers, poster and exhibits (over 60) presented in the panels and exhibition covering four broad themes drawn from strands taken from the initial call: Technology and Culture; Aesthetics and Making; Design for Wearability; and Desires, Need and Reality.

The conference set out to highlight the growing arena for wearable technologies in an interdisciplinary context and also to look at the positive and negative applications of technology in this context. This was enhanced by the inclusion of an exhibition, supported by the Arts Council of Wales, which ensured that there was space for the rhetoric and the reality of the field to be discussed concurrently.

Research within the Smart Clothes Wearable Technologies Group at University of Wales proposes the end-user as key to its practice and this conference reflected that in the approach to selection of papers and exhibits. The conference ensured that the full landscape of the field in 2005 was reflected through practitioners in design, art, craft, science, technology, cultural theory & performance,
thus taking the subject beyond 80's and 90's research in which, for example, the work of Steve Mann and MIT put the individual researcher at the centre. Prototypes were an essential component to the conference and curated into the exhibition, which in 2005, in contrast to Mann, shows a focus on making the technology appear seamless rather than celebrating it through high visibility.

One year on from Wearable Futures, research in the field seems to have expanded out into other areas of technology and practice with further conferences, applications and publications reflecting these developments. As 2010 becomes the present rather than the future (see Sarah E. Braddock Clarke and Marie OMahony, Tecnho Textiles: Revolutionary Fabrics for Fashion & Design, Thames and Hudson, 1997), what will the realities of wearables, smart materials and technology be in the next ten years? Wearable Futures generated a starting point for this area of debate; a key emerging strand being the focus on the body and its relationship to technology. Cyborg culture is being revisited but the concerns and relationship with the technology are different from the ones of 20 years ago. New materials evolving through Biotech and Nanoscience have the potential to supersede the machine and/or electronic driven devices, contributing to the design and creation of 'new flesh' or carrier of technology. These applications are being explored by creatives, academics and cultural theorists, whilst being applied to prototypes and industry with the end user in mind. Wearable Futures was a window on that changing role in 2005.

The spiders web chainmail was designed and copyrighted by Slim Barrett.

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