Collaging Climate Wearables

Try to imagine two strangers passing on the street, in a park, in a store - the fibres of what they are wearing seek out others despite the need to remain physically distant. Consider the connection of fibres, of people, of garments. Only active in public, the materials reach and grip, exchanging data through fleeting proximity. Once passive passersby share a tangible exchange of information, leading to awareness, and offering care - the communication paralleling the level of intentionality on a spaceship.

Just as information is exchanged in the cloud, as a data conversation via satellites, climate anticipating wearables enable it at a much more intimate scale on the ground - between material, people and their surroundings. We like to think and make around the concept of climate resilience through wearables. CAPE or ‘Climate Anticipation Personal Environment’ questions sensing our world and the exchange of information in real time. When considering a climate sensing environment that is connected to the individual and the community we ask how what we wear can and does serve as that intermediary?

We want that layer between us and the environment to not only consider our own wellbeing but the wellbeing of those who we share the planet and path with. In this form, it has the possibility to be a tentacular extension of care. As Yasaman Sheri writes “we could say empathy is an extension of sensing and understanding.” We propose the possibility of understanding the body in relation to urban spaces and locally collected data streams through sensing wearables.

In this workshop, you are asked to create a WEARABLE that shows others how you sense the world and how you’d share information about urban realities in real time. This workshop will be a series of exercises in making/collaging/assembling ideas surrounding PROTECTION and CARE, ANTICIPATION, RISK, SURVIVAL and COMMUNICATION with what you have available in your home and on your laptop. During the workshop, we will discuss different types of wearables, their ethics and the possibilities for these soft sensing systems. You can decide whether you want to materialise this physically or digitally, together or alone. These will become a series of visual and material considerations of local environments that depict how this data would flow and sense and be inhabited by the body.

Requirements for participants

Zoom.us application for video streaming with free account

Please check your Zoom setting before the event starts - https://zoom.us/test