The 19th International Symposium on Wearable Computers in Osaka, where I presented a paper about current developments in jewelry-like wearable devices, was a full on adventure!
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I was invited to present my research paper of jewelry at the conference in Osaka. It was my first time in Japan, and inevitably, I combined work with holidays, which guaranteed sensory overload. Met some remarkable people, presented my latest research, seen most beautiful gardens, played in the enchanted bamboo forest, discovered new style of botanical illustrations, got lost in the endless translations tunnels, and seen a future imagined for us in 1974.
A set of new enameled peaces by Chasing Lula to be displayed at
2015: 3 - 26 February Display Cases : MADE 2015 JEWELLERY 61 Westminster Bridge Rd, London SE1 7HT There is much talk about absence of artist in the technology. There is even more talk about absence of women in the technology. But in fact London’s cultural and technological scene is going through a remarkable transformation. Women, and some arty women at that, are breaking old stereotypes and mixing toys, art, music and tech. There are wider background changes, of cause. Creative technological events like Kinteica Art Fair, V&A Digital Weekend and Mini Maker Fairs became must-see cultural events of the London’s art calendar and are far from being specialised for the narrow, dear I say geeky crowd. And the Arduino has been called an enabling device not for nothing, with Little Bits, Lilypad Arduino and Bare Conductive challenging and supplementing cables and seemingly intimidating circuits. Thanks to inspiring contributions of groups like MzTech, Codasign, South London Makerspace, London Hack Space and countless others, the technology in London is accessible to all and used by many. So it might be time to stop being surprised that creative women are being involved in exiting technological endeavours. Perhaps the next step is to make sure that seeing a man on a tube with knitting needles is also no longer an oddity.
One of the my Modern Keepsakes, called The Distant Heart will be featured at the V&A's Digital Design Weekend as a part of the London Design Festival.
The Distant Heart is a computational necklace, developed as a part of the research into rectifying the emotional void created when families, friends and loved ones move away from each other. By tapping into the emerging infrastructure of the Internet of Things, the necklace wirelessly receives real-time heartbeat data from a paired device, and interprets it into the affective expressions, embedded into the necklace. If it flaps like a duck, quacks like a duck, eats like a duck, and excretes like a duck, is it a duck? This was one of the questions that philosophers asked themselves in 18th century when discussing peculiar new curiosity, made by ever-sensational French inventor from Grenoble: The Digesting Duck[1]. The duck by Jacques de Vaucanson was a sophisticated automata that not only imitated the stereotypical movements and sounds of the duck, but claimed to mimic its biological function of digestion. And although the claim was somewhat exaggerated, Vaucanson managed to give a convincing appearance of the process, believing that it is just a matter of time when he could be able to improve his creation. Whether many of his contemporaries were interested in reductionist debate or not, most spectators of the duck, were of the opinion that there is something deeply unsettling and yet appealing about realistic behavior of living creature, embodied by the mechanical object. [1] Canard Digérateur (The Digesting Duck) by Jacques de Vaucanson, destroyed in the fire (1739)
Inspired by the beauty and faithfulness of the scientific models created in late 1800ds by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, I was interested in attempting to make a scientifically accurate animated specimen that could interact with viewers and/ or its environment. And anemone with its slow tentalising movements, luxurious textures, akin to nuno-felt, and beautiful colors was perfectly suitable for this.
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AuthorYulia is a researcher, designer and maker of various beautiful things. Archives
September 2015
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