3.3.2. Case study: ~worn~
The workshop ‘~worn~’ was initiated in close collaboration with Matthew Fuller from the Media Design department of the Piet Zwart Institute, Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam and V2_Lab in the context of the MultimediaN research project. The workshop was led and coordinated by Kristina Andersen, and assisted by Simon de Bakker, Stock and Antoine van de Ven from the V2_Lab team. The text below is partly written in collaboration with Matthew Fuller and Kristina Andersen as part of the collaboration.
(Collage 11. Impressions of ~worn~ workshop; visuals from reader and by workshop participants)
(Collage 12. aRt&D team map ~worn~)
‘~worn~’ was a hands-on investigation into cross-disciplinary design and the development of wearable objects of desire. It was recently run as a 3-month thematic project for 4 first year M.A. students. It investigated which boundary objects or shared methods could facilitate a third (or hybrid) space for collaboration, play and circuitry.
The workshop aimed to promote a different creative use of wearable technology compared to what we experience in our daily life, by scrutinising its origins, playing with its anomalies and cultural qualities and modifying its applications in life and expression. However, repurposing technology often introduces problems and misunderstandings among collaborators who understand and codify the technologies differently. ‘~worn~’ explores ways to translate the designer's 'object of desire' into design methods or approaches understood by all involved areas of knowledge; from the generous or over-stretched technician and the alien artist to the practical designer. Simply hooking the parts together does not guarantee results. Knowing where they might be found, learning ways to trick them into receptiveness conjoins many kinds of skill. Knowing how and where to make such marks, so that others can pick up the work and progress with it to the next stage, is key to effective work. Starting the project from the basis of desire, from non-knowledge to collaborative execution of the work, allowed students to recognise the various marking points, the moments of transition from one kind of work, or one kind of technological embodiment to the next.
