Sherry Turkle: Tethering & Always-on/Always-on-you: The Tethered Self
Susan Elizabeth Ryan: What is Wearable Technology Art?
I’m going to work my way backwards, starting with addressing “What is Wearable Technology Art?”. Ryan spends a considerable amount of time arguing why fashion is worthy of serious intellectual consideration, she sites a few well know scholars…. she begins to illustrate the notion of wearable technology, by hinting at a Kevin Kelly approach to the evolution of technology, such as eyeglasses, the wrist watch, and fictional examples like batman, James Bond, and star trek. One of the strongest points in the essay is a quote from a practitioner of such work, Co, who writes:
“ With this research work I have tried to explore the ways that technology and computation can expand the vocabulary of fashion and change the ways we think about our bodies as they relate to others and the environment. From the experience of designing and implementing each project, it is clear that we must somehow become more facile, able to move dexterously between various aspects of design. Beyond a generalized system for creating computational garments lies the fundamental need to change our notions of hardware and software as separate entities, removed from the physicality of fabric, wind, and shape.”
Co’s words mark a directed, yet significantly open enough concept of what wearable technology could be, to stir up imagination and speculation. It’s possible Co mentions ‘art’ at some other unquoted portion of her writing, but in this quote it seems to be much more ambitious in its scale of thought. It’s interesting to me that the title of this essay is ‘What is Wearable Technology Art?’ since the she does very little to conceptualize an ontological foundation for WTA but instead searches for practices that intersect or are close to the WTA, she is hinting at, that have institutional credibility. With the second to last section of the essay titled ‘…WTA a cohesive practice?’ it seems Ryan is trying to produce an identity that can find a home in academia, rather then articulating a possible mode of production. With the essay’s concluding sentence arguing that for WTA to be understood ‘traditional linear strategies for academic academic analysis will have to adapt just as inventively.’ It seems to confirm, a feeling I had while reading it, that it’s subtext is concerned with the institutional formation of academia, and how these structures make room or ignore certain societal activity. This doesn’t come as much of a surprise since, the text is clearly hoping to act as a kind of birthing point, institutionally speaking, of future disciplinary development.
Critical reflection upon wearable technology, segues beautifully into the notion of a tethered self when considering the whole cyborg, body interface perspective. What I appreciate most about Turkle’s efforts with ‘Tethering’ is the grounded-ness of her analysis. She takes the time to articulate, what in the last ten to fifteen years has become so common place and intimate to people’s daily lives, it is like trying to describe water to scuba divers.
“A train station is no longer a communal public space, but a space of social collection: tethered selves come together, but do not speak to each other. In the sociology of social collection each person in the station is more likely to be having an encounter with someone miles away than with the person in the next chair. Each inhabits a private media bubble.”
Her rhetoric seems to suggest that the ‘sociology of social collection’ is a negative development, this leads into her speculation about the long term implications of a tethered social experience in the inculturation and development of children. One thing is for certain, whether it is talked about as good or bad, the tethered we is here to stay.
interesting site: http://www.fashioningtech.com
