See Yourself Sensing Book

My Laptop Compubody Sock is included in the book See Yourself Sensing by Madeline Schwartzman:

Did you know it has been revealed that we can hear our skin, can see through our tongue, and can plug our nervous system directly into a computer? With prosthetics, robotics, cybernetics, virtual reality, transplants, and neuroscience altering the way we perceive and experience space, the body has re-emerged as an important architectural site. See Yourself Sensing endeavors to track the experiments of artists and designers on the intimate scale of the body, and to explore the influence of such experimentation on architecture, installation and new media.

Exploring this concept through the last 50 years of contemporary art and design, See Yourself Sensing: Redefining Human Perception examines the work of key practitioners in this field, from Rebecca Horn’s object based installations, Stelarc’s robotic body extensions to Carsten Höllers’ physically interactive sculptures. The works and artists illustrated throws into consideration how we see and sense the world around us through artistic interpretation. Whether extending these senses through projections, technological spectacles or even telepathy, our perceptual limitations are challenged and our senses realized visually. Analyzing the importance and influence of body-scaled sensory experiments, Schwartzman reveals the fascinating relationship between senses, body, art and perception.

Wired Article – Open Source Embroidery

The Open Source Embroidery exhibition is now open at UmeÃ¥ University’s Bildmuseet. After the show is over there, it’ll be traveling to the Museum of Craft and Folk Art in San Francisco (October 2009). Wired.com interviewed me in an article about the exhibit and movement.

An online editor for the Craft and Make magazines, Becky Stern is deeply involved in the DIY community. Stern took her love for programming and crafts and meshed it into an embroidered piece that puts a microcontroller board called the LilyPad Arduino at its center.

The LilyPad is a microcontroller board that can be sewn to fabric with conductive thread. The board was designed and developed by Leah Buechley and SparkFun Electronics and it was an idea that fascinated Stern.

Stern took the board and embroidered it into a floral pattern. She added lights and sounds activated by sensors and the microcontroller software. Moving your hand over the piece results in changes in light and sounds generated from the fabric.