Technology is allowing us to see our clothing as an extension of our body. An extension acting as a system that reacts, collects information, and augments our modes of expression and interactions with spaces and people. Historically, what we wear has been used to express our identity as well as complex issues related to class, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. Leila Brillson states: "What you wear is a part of your identity, and identity is, well, pretty darn political". Interested in fashion as a form of expression, many artists, designers, and architects are now crossing disciplines to explore the realm of fashion. The use of computation design, digital fabrication, and electronics allows them to propose new wearables to speculate on the future of human existence and explore the limits of the body.
This research includes the development of wearables by using data physicalization, digital fashion, interactive fashion, and the use of tools like augmented reality, digital fabrication, soft robotics, and microcontrollers, among others.
Projects:
Interactive Fashion
This is a course taught by Godoy at NYU Shanghai during the Spring 23 semester. In this course, students conducted research and worked with soft electronics and robotics. They integrated them into textiles to make it possible to add controlled behavior and interactivity with their immediate environment. They studied nature to design wearables, understanding them as a second skin and a soft interface able to gather information and transform itself. Students also experimented with 3D printing and other digital machines to create their own textiles to explore the complex geometries and designs allowed by digital design and manufacturing. In this course students engaged with both theory and practice, and they were introduced to a specific design sensibility and methodology to design wearables reflecting on religious, social, and political issues.
PNEUSKIN, A Haptic Social Interface with Inflatable Fabrics
In Collaboration with Yujie Wang (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning) Godoy published PNEUSKIN, A Haptic Social Interface with Inflatable Fabrics. The paper proposes an embodied computation agenda and describes the design and prototyping process of a multi-sensory smart skin in response to varying social distance in interpersonal communication. By looking at adaptive behaviors in nature and the way that certain animal species respond to external stimuli by increasing their size and providing multi-sensory responses, PNEU-SKIN looks into how our clothing could become an adaptable skin to redefine interpersonal communication experience within everyday social interaction. This research was presented at the 26th International Conference of the Association for Computer-Aided Architectural Design Research in Asia CAADRIA 2021. Organized from Hong Kong
Enabling Wearables
“Sobering numbers show that 1 in 3 women have experienced physical or sexual violence, mostly by an intimate partner; about 120 million girls have been forced into intercourse or other sexual acts at some point in their lives; and 133 million women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation.” http://www.unwomen.org
Enabling Wearables is 3D printed jewelry, and a visualization created from UN Women database, which shows the percentage of women who have suffered sexual abuse from their partners across the globe. Enabling Wearables also resembles self-defense weapons to empower women and raise awareness about this problem that many of them suffer every day. The project is the final project of the course Sculpting Data Into Everyday Objects, taught by Professor Esther Cheung. This course, from the Interactive Media Arts program at New York University, challenged students to develop their own “non-linear design process” through combining programming, 3D modeling and digital fabrication technology toward the making of an everyday data object.
This is a collaboration with Michell Johanna Cardona, ITP Alumnus, and NYU adjunct instructor.
