Open lecture: "Embodying wearables in unstable times"

Despite much promise, wearables are still commonly conceived of as tech gadgets. Fortunately, this perception is changing. Emerging research into wearables is fuelled by: advances in textile technologies and biology that suggest radical new opportunities for embodied and material interactions; advancing conceptions of the humanistic potential of wearables, to extend social and cultural functions of clothing; rising concern about the ecological impact of clothing and electronics; and research efforts by fashion-oriented clothing and sportswear companies, determined to bring new kinds of wearables to market.
 

Future wearables have great potential to contribute to human and planetary flourishing, in a wide variety of use-contexts. But this potential requires changes, not only in thinking, but in how design, engineering and science is enacted. In these times of great social, ecological, political and planetary flux, what better time to grapple with the challenge of future wearables?
 

Danielle Wilde is research associate professor of Embodied Design at The University of Southern Denmark, Kolding. Her research foregrounds diversity of embodied experience throughout the design process, investigating Wearable and Material Futures, Disruptive Ideation, and Design Ecologies in uncertain times. Wilde is adjunct professor of practice-based, creative research at RMIT University, Melbourne, in the School of Fashion and Textiles; and associate research fellow at Waag Society for Art, Science and Technology, Amsterdam, where she investigates biohacking across scales of experience and concern. Wilde holds an MA in Interaction Design from the Royal College of Art in London, and a practice-based PhD from Monash University (Art, Design and Architecture) and CSIRO: Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (Materials Science and Engineering).

She publishes and exhibits widely and has received numerous awards for her work, including the Monash University Medal for Excellence and the inaugural Australian Prime Minister’s Australia Endeavour Award for emerging leaders. Her PhD, completed in 2012, investigated the impact of decision making on a poetics of experience when designing and developing wearable technologies.

For more see: www.daniellewilde.com