This morning when you woke up and got dressed, the clothes you put on were (hopefully) made from tangible materials—cotton, linen, some synthetic polymer fabric, or perhaps, if you were feeling particularly futuristic, your t-shirt might incorporate some e-textiles. But how about waking up and downloading a new face? Perhaps one that consists of elaborately coloured geometric shapes—a form of augmented cosmetics that goes way beyond glitter and smoky eyes. That’s the idea explored by designer, artist, and theorist Jenny Lee for her MA in Textile Futures at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London. Her project, Immateriality: The Future Human, uses augmented reality to explore a post-human aesthetic, where a decorative face (or body) enhancement could be just as common a way to augment your looks as putting on a pair of earrings, or injecting botox into your forehead. As science and technology intrude ever more upon our lives, could digital textiles alter how we look in a fundamental way?
According to Lee, this brave new fashion world will be like a “digital couture service that is tailored to the consumer’s needs, to facilitate the re-design and enhancement of the physical human-self”. And one way she proposes this could happen is with digital skins. These digital skins are like AR growths that cover the wearer in a chosen look triggered by wearing a device, like a ring, that causes the AR to react and form. The new look is added to a wearer’s online profile, which can be updated as often as they like, simply by walking into a store and trying out a new look and then adding it to their database. So far, so futuristic, but it all seems rather pointless given that the only way to currently see these fantastical designs is through an AR browser on your mobile phone, and that’s a little clunky, to say the least. But once those AR contact lens arrive, the whole world will be superimposed with AR imagery—streets adorned with AR sculptures and adverts, food items with nutritional information, and your girlfriends will be sporting digital makeup, of course.
digital skins
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