Since the mid 1990s, an increasing number of new media artists have experimented with wearable computers and sensor technology deriving from biofeedback studies in medicine and the military to create electronic interfaces between bodies and their environments. At the junction between science and art, these works coincide with the refinement of contemporary posthuman and cyborg discourses, as well as the advancement of biotechnology. Hailed as the "father of wearable computers,"1 Canadian computer engineer Steve Mann characterizes "wearables" as portable, self-contained devices "subsumed into the personal space of the user." Significantly, these computers are capable of running continuously, requiring no activation by the wearer.2
Contemporary artists, exploring concepts of corporeality, space, and time, integrate
wearable technology into garments which gather and transmit vital signs emitted from the
bodies of participants, such as heart rate, respiration, temperature, motion and touch.
Compared with other forms of media art, including installations using video, laser discs,
virtual reality or gaming technology, sensor-based works generally remain an under-examined subject within art history.3 Moreover, research on the impact of such technology on society is in an embryonic stage. A comprehensive overview remains to be written concerning the applications of biotech garments in contemporary culture and the medical research from which wearables originated.4
In addition to their significant, though over-looked, role within recent artistic
practices, these devices engage with the growing problematic of preserving new media art. Body-machine interface works challenge traditional practices of art conservation. These objects consist of delicate, tiny electronic components intended for extensive physical manipulation by participants. Furthermore, wearables use forms of an experimental technology which has yet to infiltrate the mass market. Art works constructed out of fragile, sophisticated parts and specialized software are especially vulnerable to the inevitable ravages of physical deterioration and the acceleration of technological obsolescence. Techniques intended to restore and repair tangible works which are more or less physically stable, such as paintings and sculptures, are inadequate for contemporary time-based media art.
This paper neither outlines a proscriptive set of solutions for technical problems nor presents an exhaustive survey of the art historical interpretations and critical reception of wearable computer art. Rather, I adopt a historical and theoretical perspective to argue that the preservation and documentation of wearable new media art affirm the social nature of participants’ bodies. Potential strategies for conserving, recording, describing and displaying these works emphasize interactions among users which form networked communities united by shared flows of somatic data. Drawing from recent studies of new media preservation, this analysis develops the subsequent issues: conceptions of the body as information; efforts to
1 Ana Viseu, "Social Dimensions of Wearable Computers: An Overview," Technoetic Arts 1 (2003):78.
2 Steve Mann, "Wearable Computers as Means for Personal Empowerment," in The 1998 International Conference for Wearable Computing ICWC-98, Fairfax, VA (1998). (accessed 1 April, 2006).
3For a brief overview of contemporary artists working with biotechnology and bodily stimulation, see
Stephen Wilson, "Body and Medicine," in Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science and Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 149- 170.
4 Viseu, "Social Dimensions of Wearable Computers," 77. 2
record the performance of a community of participants; new understandings of exhibition spaces; and the connection between preservation, clothing and technology.
The conceptual relation between preservation and notions of the somatic expands the definition of an art work beyond its material and technological components. Worn and borne through space, these high tech accoutrements blur the boundaries between art object and the wearer. Hence, this paper underscores an extended understanding of the wearable computer art work as comprising both physical objects and performance. In addition, many of these works encompass installation art, as their exhibition sites may function as interactive environments embedded with sensors communicating with the miniature devices bedecking the participants.
Meanwhile, my analysis addresses three key art works to understand how biosensor art defies traditional conservation and museum practices. Each creation represents a defining moment in the historical development of computer garments in art. The 1993-1994 cyberSM project by Norwegian media artist Stahl Stenslie, the acclaimed pioneer of cybersex, and American Kirk Woolford, constitutes one of the earliest electronic interface suits. During the first staging of this piece, an individual in Paris engaged in an aggressive, long-distance erotic encounter with someone in Cologne via futuristic fetish wear connected to a computer network in conjunction with international telephone lines. Nearly a decade later, Canadian artists Thecla Schiphorst and Susan Kozel, whose works often combine digital media with dance performances, completed whisper in 2002. This project consists of a set of eccentric garments and accessories made of light fabrics and materials enclosing sensors meant to adorn the hands, ankles, neck and torso; through such devices, participants may send electronic signals to each other. Using whisper as a case study, the V2_Organization in Rotterdam conducted a major research endeavour entitled Capturing Unstable Media to develop new standards and practices for the documentation of electronic art. Finally, American Bill Seaman, who has produced video art and interactive installations since the 1980s, and Ingrid Verbauwhede, an electrical engineer from the University of California in Los Angeles, initiated The Poly-sensing Environment in 2002. Placed not only on clothing but also on articles of furniture and walls, sensors communicate in the Environment via GPS (Global Positioning System) technology. The transmission of data emitted from participants’ bodies triggers the projection of audio and/or visual clips compiled by Seaman. Montreal’s Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology (DLF) provided support for this project. Currently in progress, the work exists primarily as textual documentation, such as the brief descriptive essay included in the online database of the DLF Centre for Research and Documentation, as well as technical reports produced by researchers in collaboration with Seaman.5
The Body Informatic
Wearable garment performances foreground the social character of the body by
establishing personal interactions among users. Participants are able to communicate with each other through the sensors’ capacity to receive and transmit physiological information, such as excitability, pulse and tactile stimulation. Hence, the constant flow of shared bodily data engenders a fluctuating web of inter-relating social beings. The cohesion of this electronics-clad community of users emerges through the art work’s production of documentation about the body for artistic, conceptual and even sexual purposes.
The primacy of information for wearable works is historically related to the
emergence of posthuman discourses in the West during the final two decades of the 20th- 3
century. Variants of posthumanism address the possibilities of technology to augment and enhance the bodily functioning and life spans of human beings. Advances in genetic
modification, cloning, nanotechnology, prostheses and surgical procedures have galvanized intense debate over the meaning of humanness and the limits of fleshly corporeality. These contemporary scientific developments stimulated scholars from diverse disciplines, including bioethics, biomedicine, semiotics and cultural studies, to re-think conceptions of the body in relation to the immaterial and the technological. Some scholars have consequently posited the porosity of the boundary between the physical body and abstract information. Biomedical theorist and artist Eugene Thacker notes that the technophile "extropian" branch of posthumanism particularly emphasizes the conception of the body as information. This theory interprets the body according to an "informatic worldview," such that "when the body is considered essentially as information, this opens onto the possibility that the body may be programmed and reprogrammed (and whose predecessor is genetic engineering)."6 In other words, if the body is conceived of as a code of genetic information stored in DNA, technology may intervene to re-write this information. The intermingling of bodies and data which emerged in medical science has infiltrated contemporary popular culture. Typical examples of youth culture entertainment which approach the biological through the framework of information include virtual reality environments, as well as video games using avatars of beings meant to be modified and enhanced creatively by players.7
In relation to art, media theorist Boris Groys suggests that the contemporary era of "biopolitics" has induced a proliferation of documentation produced by artists. The mapping and modification of the body by technology establish pervasive social conditions that privilege the systematic accumulation of information not only in the sciences, but also in
the arts. Whereas scientists collate data gathered during research for study and re-
programming, artists produce audio and visual records to capture the conception, appearance
and demise of ephemeral objects and performances. Documentation refers to and records an art work, yet does not necessarily create a new, distinct work. The act of photographing or describing an ephemeral work in writing "is a result without a result."8 However, wearable media works complicate Groys’ analysis. His approach presupposes a distinction between the original art work and the visual or textual documents created by artists following the conception or execution of the work. Computer interface garments are both works of art and producers of information concerning participants’ ongoing encounters. Such records comprise part of the work along with the garments and sensors.
Discourses of the informatic body resonate with the exchange of somatic data within the social networks forged by wearable art performances. According to artists Schiphorst and Kozel, the playful whisper explores an understanding of the body as a set of networked,
5For on-line images of these works, see "Stenslie, Stahl: cyberSM," in Medien Kunst Netz/Media Art Net (2004). (accessed 11 February, 2006); F. Winkler, "Poly-Sensing Environment and Object-Based Emergent Intention Matrix: Toward an Integrated Physical/Augmented Reality Space," in University of California, Los Angeles, Website (2002). (accessed 17 March, 2006).
6 Eugene Thacker, "Data Made Flesh: Biotechnology and the Discourse of the Posthuman," Cultural Critique 53 (2003): 86.
7 Robert Mitchell and Phillip Thurtle, "Fleshy Data: Semiotics, Information and the Body," in Semiotic Flesh: Information and the Human Body, eds. Robert Mitchell and Phillip Thurtle (Seattle: Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington Press, 2002), 1.
8 Boris Groys, "Art in the Age of Biopolitics: From Artwork to Art Documentation," in Documenta 1 Platform 5: Exhibition Catalogue (Kassel: Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2002), 108. 4
intercommunicating systems. The whisperers include gloves resembling webs, macramé and bandages, a device worn as a choker necklace and an airy, woven, cape-like garment; up to six individuals at a time may don the devices.9 These fragile-looking objects measure affect, breath, brainwaves, pulse and temperature. Participants may electronically send this physiological information to each other as well as to a computer workstation; subsequently, the central database server can communicate with the wearables which, in return, respond by sighing or tickling the wearer. Shared data is also made visually accessible in the form of images projected onto a screen in the performance site. Information received from users’ bodies is then archived for future retrieval by other participants.10
Meanwhile, the cyberSM project explores the transmission of electronic signals to
manifest the jolting physical presence of an absent body during a cyborgian sexual liaison.
Encased in latex and rubber "sensor/stimulator" suits, participants in different physical
locations communicate with each other through avatars, virtual nude bodies selected from
a bank of scanned images compiled by Stenslie and Woolford on a computer. When one
participant selects an area on the avatar body of their remote partner, a "tactile" message
of desire greets the recipient in the form of a shock conducted through electrical stimulators,
heat pads and vibrating sensors adorning the erogenous zones of the futuristic garb.11 The
transmission of signals through computers, fiber optic technology and sensors creates an
erotics of aggressive absence as cyberSM paradoxically establishes a visceral, yet impersonal
physical contact between anonymous individuals across geographical distance and temporal
lapse.
Capturing Performance
Bodily movement comprises a socializing process. Besides receiving and sending
flows of data, the user’s body participates in and helps to build a community of wearers
through kinesthetic engagement with the surroundings and other bodies. The compactness
and portability of sensor garments enable participants to meander through a performance or
exhibition space with the electronic devices. This discussion previously analyzed documentation in relation to physiological information. Yet, recording exhibitions of
wearable works also relates to the archiving of the gestures, emotional responses, personal
contacts and spatial trajectories of users. Members of the public, rather than artists or hired
performers, are often invited to don the garments and activate the electronic equipment.
Whereas abundant documentation exists concerning performances enacted by contemporary
artists, recordings of the involvement of the public are less extensive. In relation to
wearables, records of wearers’ experiences are essential for representing artists’ intentions for the use and appearance of the objects. As individual material artifacts, biosensor art works are of limited aesthetic and conceptual significance. Designed to be put on, handled, and removed, wearable computer works best convey their performative significance through
9"whisper During DEAF03," in V2_ Organization: Capturing Unstable Media (2003). (accessed 21 February, 2006).
10Thecla Schiphorst and Susan Kozel, "Pulp Fashion: Wearable Archi(ves)tectures," in V2_Organization: Capturing Unstable Media (2002). (accessed 21 February, 2006).
11Stephen Wilson, Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science and Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
2002), 164-165. For a discussion of cyborgs, sexuality and tele-presence in contemporary new media art and cinema, see the article by media theorist Marie-Luise Angerer, "The Making of…Desire, Digital," in Medien Kunst Netz/ Media Art Net (2004).
documentation that describes users’ participation.
The V2_Organization’s Capturing Unstable Media project researched user
interaction during the exhibition of whisper in a theatre called the Rotterdamse Schouwburg, during DEAF03_Data Knitting, the 2003 edition of the Dutch Electronic Art Festival in Rotterdam. The V2 staff produced a series of photographic records and a digital video of the movements and behaviours of the public. Extensive written documentation accompanied the visual sources. As a result, this case study mapped "a restricted metadata" for describing users’ involvement with the work. The metadata addresses the spatial and temporal aspects of the work, and outlines statistical reports about the number of visitors present. V2 notably assesses the degree of intensity of participants’ experiences as determined by levels of interactivity. V2 also proposes that user interviews and video recordings of visitors supplement metadata.12
The documentary approach employed by the San Francisco-based Dance Heritage
Coalition in the LADD (Learning Applications to Document Dance) project of 1997
suggests another perspective toward recording movement and performance pertinent to the challenges posed by wearables. Unlike V2, LADD focused exclusively on developing audiovisual recordings, promoting the use of a dynamic, two-camera system to document
dance. The pair of cameras films the subtleties of choreographed movement and the
ambiance of the stage from a broad range of angles.13
Meanwhile, the research proposal for The Poly-sensing Environment by Bill
Seaman and Ingrid Verbauwhede exemplifies the potential for art works to archive
performance. The work consequently appropriates the attributes of a database. Wireless
sensors placed on walls, furniture and clothing continuously monitor and store data derived
from the movements, bodily heat and chemical makeup of participants. A central computer
then combines these findings with eclectic images, videos, texts and sound clips to be collated
by Seaman. The server records users’ engagements with the various surfaces of the
environment, such that participants can access diagrams charting the behaviour patterns and
paths of previous users. Maps and grids re-trace the sequences in which participants have
triggered or de-activated different sensors.14
Consequently, the Environment’s capacity to serve as an interactive archive implies that this work approaches documentation from the perspective of narrative. Visitors generate accounts of their personalized, multi-sensorial experience of Seaman’s creation. This narrative will expand and ramify throughout the work’s existence as successive participants contribute their bodily data and are able to access records left by previous visitors. However, whisper layers fact with fiction, thereby countering the claim to veracity and historical
12 Sandra Fauconnier and Rens Frommé, "Capturing Unstable Media: Summary of Research," in
V2_ Organization: Capturing Unstable Media (2003).
(accessed 21 February, 2006). For an alternate model of metadata used to document new media art, see Richard Rinehart, "A System of Formal Notation for Scoring Works of Digital and Variable Media Art," in Archiving the Avant-Garde (2006). (accessed 24 January, 2006).
13 Dance Heritage Coalition, Report on the Findings of the Learning Applications to Dance (LADD) Project (1997). (accessed 27 March, 2006).
14 "Bill Seaman and Ingrid Verbauwhede: Poly-sensing Environment," in Centre for Research and Documentation Database: Daniel Langlois Foundation (2002).
accuracy associated with archival records. As Kozel and Schiphorst elaborate, "the whispers can revisit and reconstruct past views as it progresses. The past is not replaced, it is augmented and restructured as the system perception grows."15 Hence, the work refashions documentation as a creative process which continually sifts through and re-configures the history of viewers’ performances.
Organic Exhibition Spaces
Recording users’ interactions with wearable computers underscores the importance of the exhibition space as a social environment. Documentation may thus engender new descriptions and conceptualizations of the spatial role of the museum and gallery. Howard Besser has analyzed the incompatibility between conventional preservation strategies and the fluctuating, variable qualities of time-based new media art constructed from equipment destined for obsolescence. Within his discussion of new practices for conserving electronic works, he also addresses the central role of the exhibition site and its historical value. He argues cogently that preserving new media art requires the documentation of exhibition spaces and display conditions, which would thus enable future re-installments of the work to acknowledge and accurately represent the historical context in which the art was originally produced and exhibited.16 Furthermore, documenting how a work was shown in an exhibition space may enable museum and gallery personnel to fulfill the intentions of artists in relation to the aesthetic significance, appearance, atmosphere and functioning integral to the work. In certain cases, knowledge of the original display may be of greater relevance to art historians attempting to reconstruct a work’s exhibition history and its initial impact on critics’ responses. For preservationists concerned with assuring the work’s fitness for display, the appearance of the original exhibition may not necessarily yield the most practical or interesting template.
Regardless of the precise display conditions, a paradoxical relationship exists
between wearable new media works and space. Ostensibly, certain of these performative
works are site-specific as they explore the flow of data and the forging of personal contacts between individuals in a given setting. whisper incorporates wall projections, while the Poly-sensing Environment explores the transmission and reception of data within an idiosyncratic installation. However, computer garments also undermine site-specificity due to their portability. The user’s body acts as the major exhibition site for the sensor-lined garments, usurping the function of the museum or gallery as the architectural and physical frame of the work. Hence, nomadic electronic garments may accommodate a range of potential exhibition environments. For the staging of cyberSM, the artists could have chosen to establish a virtual sexual encounter between partners located in any two sites; that they selected venues in Paris and Cologne is of secondary importance to this experiment in tele-presence.
Thus, the display of wearables departs from dominant forms of exhibiting and relating to art, due to the fusion of viewer/participant with the art work, as well as the decreased emphasis on architectural space. Within the history of display practices, the conception of an individual acting as an exhibition site in communication with other people and objects diverges from the conventional experiential relation between the sterile white cube gallery
15Schiphorst and Kozel, "Pulp Fashion" (accessed 21 February, 2006).
16Howard Besser, "The Longevity of Electronic Art," in International Cultural Heritage Informatics
Meeting (2001). (accessed 13 January, 2006). 7
space and the pulsating body. Carol Duncan’s landmark sociological study of the art museum as a ritual site posits that the exhibition aesthetic of the modernist white cube distinguishes viewers from art works both conceptually and spatially. Duncan observes that the emphasis on strategically well-lit displays and the careful horizontal alignment of works at eye level affirm the primacy of visual experience. Hence, display strategies structure an objectifying relationship between observing subject and art object. The white cube deliberately restricts the range of sensorial input to the viewer as works are spatially isolated in uncluttered, pristine environments characterized by large expanses of bare, unadorned wall. The cool aesthetic of the modern art institution emphasizes the architecture as a functional container and a set of solid surfaces.17
However, the descriptive terminology used by artists to qualify exhibition spaces for biosensor art de-emphasizes architectural form and dimensions. While there exists no standard lexicon to classify venues for wearable technology, artists’ informal nomenclatures
vividly re-imagine the exhibition sites of the digital age as social spaces based on the model
of a living, responsive, organic entity. Seaman describes the location for his wireless sensors
as an enveloping "poly-sensing environment," a cybernetic space inspired by the processes of
human cognition.18 Designating whisper as "a performance piece in a social space," Schiphorst and Kozel elaborate that "the space of the installation can best be described as a
networked ecosystem."19 As a result, biological analogies employed by artists implicitly liken
the exhibition locale to the inter-related bodies of participants.
By re-conceptualizing display spaces in relation to the public’s free interactions,
idiosyncratic movements and desires, contemporary artists implicitly craft a vision of the
museum as being unhampered by social restrictions or cultural elitism. Hence, the living,
amorphous ecosystems of biosensor art seemingly defy the social control which has
underpinned the discourse of the modern museum as a physical entity and institution. The
status of museums as state institutions of cultural authority is historically associated with the
policing of potentially unruly bodies in the presence of enshrined works of art. Today,
surveillance technology, security systems and protocols for not touching the works regulate
social behavior in the museum. The birth of the art museum in the West was intertwined with
the establishment’s desire to instill order through the public display of power: following the French Revolution, works of art seized from defeated nations were triumphantly displayed
before citizens in the royal palace of the Louvre. Previously, many art collections were
ensconced in royal palaces and monastic buildings, shielded from public access. The act of
exhibiting art for the public therefore legitimized and consolidated the victory of the
revolutionary forces against France’s foreign adversaries and the aristocratic ancient regime.20
Despite the freedom of movement elicited by biosensor art within exhibition sites,
wearables nevertheless perpetuate a variant of the tension between personal enrichment and social control associated with the museum. Wearable computers have transferred this problematic from the museum to the body, resulting in a new tension pitting user empowerment against external surveillance. During the 1990s, proponents argued that wearable computers empowered users by providing continuous access to information through a device endowed with "the possibility of augmenting the human body’s sensory and cognitive abilities."21 In 1998, Steve Mann optimistically heralded wearable computing as a technology which would equip users with exclusive control over the personal information
17 Carol Duncan, Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums (New York: Routledge, 1995), 17.
18 "Bill Seaman and Ingrid Verbauwhede: Poly-sensing Environment" (accessed 11 February, 2006).
19 Schiphorst and Kozel, "Pulp Fashion" (accessed 21 February, 2006).
20Jean-Louis Déotte, "Rome, the Archetypal Museum, and the Louvre, the Negation of Division," in Grasping the World: The Idea of the Museum, eds. Donald Preziosi and Claire Farago (London: Ashgate, 2004), 59-61.
21 Viseu, "Social Dimensions of Wearable Computers," 78. 8
stored in these devices during an era in which surveillance technologies had increasingly pervaded daily life.22 In response, critics warned of the inevitable Orwellian co-opting of wearables by authorities to maintain social order and employee productivity.23 Likewise, thorny privacy issues surface in new media art. The sensors used by whisper and The Poly-sensing Environment receive and disclose users’ personal vital signs in a public venue. The body’s hidden, internal data is made external and communicable, sent to other participants, projected onto a screen in the exhibition space or posted on-line. Moreover, only by removing the garment can users prevent the devices from monitoring bodily information. Electronic surveillance of somatic information ironically reinforces participants’ autonomy, as wearers may divest themselves of the intrusive devices at will.
Preserving Hybridity: Technology and Clothing
The relation between wearable technology and the social body may be further
understood by analyzing these works as articles of clothing. Garments have an inherently
social function as they constitute visible, physical signifiers of the wearer’s membership in a group or claimed affiliation with a culture or subculture. Wearables overlap the categories of clothing, uniform and prosthesis by intimately enveloping the wearer, symbolically marking the body as belonging to a community and enhancing physical abilities. Furthermore, the performativity of wearable art bestows a marked theatrical aura to the devices, which thereby attain the status of costume and ornament. Visibly unifying wearers within an electronic community of performing bodies, these garments are aesthetic, idiosyncratic markers of behaviour and contexts which lie outside of the quotidian experience of mundane life. The delicate, mesh-like garments comprising whisper are designed to be worn over the participants’ regular clothing or as jewelry on exposed parts of the body. These objects, therefore, are not substitutes for clothing, but rather function as temporary accessories deriving their significance from an artistic context. Thus, the futuristic and pseudo-military style of the constrictive, shiny black latex and rubber sensor suits of cyberSM inscribes participants within a transient foray in a sado-masochistic subculture.
The dual role of wearables as computers and garments classifies these works as hybrid
or mixed media objects requiring multiple preservation strategies. For instance, conservation
techniques used by historical and anthropological museums for textiles and clothing might be
applied toward the future restoration of the materials surrounding the sensors. The electronic
components would have to be replaced, emulated or migrated, depending on the condition of
the art work and availability of parts. Computer clothing therefore disrupts the fundamental
shift in conservation approaches described by Howard Besser. Pointing to examples of video
and internet art, he notes that the lack of fixity characteristic of electronic works requires that preservation techniques "shift from the paradigm of repairing and saving a physical object to that of maintaining a set of disembodied artistic content over time."24 However, the art works to which Besser refers differ distinctly from wearables in that the materiality and aesthetic quality of the equipment for video and web art may be of lesser significance than the screen, the projected image and the space in which viewers interact with the work. In contrast, wearable technology is framed by materials deliberately selected for their unique look and texture, as a sensual reminder of the continuing importance of materiality for electronic art.
For instance, whisper’s title comprises an acronym emphasizing the objects’ proximity to the body: "wearable, handheld, intimate, sensory, personal, expressive, responsive."25 The
22 Mann, "Wearable Computers as Means for Personal Empowerment" (accessed 1 April, 2006).
23 Viseu, "Social Dimensions of Wearable Computers," 80.
24 Besser, "The Longevity of Electronic Art" (accessed 13 January, 2006).
25 Schiphorst and Kozel, "Pulp Fashion" (accessed 21 February, 2006). 9
whisperers combine sophisticated electronics, such as speakers, sensors and motors, with inexpensive tactile materials ranging from knitted wool, paper, latex and fabrics.26 In addition to the intercommunication between sensors, this work explores the phenomenological experience of being lightly adorned with fragile, irregularly textured objects. Donning the whisperers suggests a playful, whimsical rite, while the handmade appearance of these high tech garments evokes traditional women’s crafts, such as knitting and spinning. Meanwhile, cyberSM explores the experience of rigid confinement within thick, close-fitting outfits made of opaque, non-porous textiles. Stenslie and Woolford’s sleek black suits aspire to the status of fashion by emulating genuine fetish gear. Photographs of cyberSM often illustrate a fit young woman modeling one of the outfits accessorized with high boots. Such images thus evoke the stereotypical aesthetic of kinky decadence affiliated with sado-masochism. For both of these art works, preserving the physical integrity and documenting the cultural associations of the materials of the garments are essential for maintaining the conceptual value of the whisperers and the cyber-suits.
As a result, the hybrid nature of electronic garments resists reductive categorizations
defined strictly according to media. Hence, the Variable Media Questionnaire offers a viable
approach toward assessing the unique preservation requirements of these works. Launched in
2003 by New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, this questionnaire, aimed primarily
at artists, devises potential preservation decisions in relation to what curator Jon Ippolito
designates as "medium-independent, mutually-compatible descriptions of each artwork, which we call behaviors."27 According to this set of descriptive terms, art works may be
identified as belonging to one or more of the following behaviours: networked, encoded,
duplicated, reproduced, interactive, performed, installed and contained.28 The flexibility of
this schema permits wearables to be understood from multiple perspectives. For instance,
by approaching technological garments as "performed," conservationists can address "how to reenact original instructions in a new context."29 This category would apply to wearables which emphasize a particular relation with their surroundings or demand participants’ choreographed engagement. Moreover, the categories of "interactive" and "networked" accurately delineate participants’ inter-communications through the transmission of data.
The relationship between clothing and the electronic devices suggests that the sensors have more than a uniquely technical role. Curator Pip Laurenson’s approach to conserving time-based new media equipment affirms that the function of electronic components depends upon the specific art work as well as the original intentions of the artist. Visible computer parts, for example, may contribute to the aesthetic, conceptual and historical significance of certain works; in such cases, preservationists must strive to maintain the integrity of the appearance of the equipment, along with its operating capability. However, Laurenson considers technological components concealed from the viewer to be exclusively functional. Such devices may thus be substituted by similar equipment without causing significant change to the authenticity of the art work’s form or meaning.30 Concealed within costumes, the sensors used by whisper and cyberSM contribute little to the aesthetic value of the
26 "whisper," in V2_ Organization: Capturing Unstable Media (2002).
27 Jon Ippolito, "Accommodating the Unpredictable: The Variable Media Questionnaire," in Permanence Through Change: The Variable Media Approach, eds. Alain Depocas, Jon Ippolito and Caitlin Jones (Montreal: Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology; New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2003), 48.
28 Ippolito, "Accommodating the Unpredictable,"46.
29 Ippolito, "Accommodating the Unpredictable,"49.
30 Pip Laurenson, "The Management of Display Equipment in Time-Based Media Installations," in Modern Art, New Museums: Contributions to the Bilbao Congress (2004).
garments. The intriguing appearance of the clothing detracts from the complexity of the technology used by artists. Yet, the sensors transcend mere technical worth as they are integral to the conceptual mechanics of networked interaction as a form of communication and socializing. Biosensors therefore transform the cultural significance and ways of relating to the world commonly associated with clothing. Unlike everyday street garb, wearables produced by artists do not aim to protect the wearer or express personal tastes. Rather, electronic garments constitute permeable boundaries between the wearer’s body and the outside, sites where the secrets of the body’s inner workings are made public, as in whisper, and where external shocks penetrate the submissive participant of cyberSM.
Knowledge of the functioning, technological drawbacks and usefulness of bio-
medical and commercial examples of computer clothing could assist conservationists’ decisions concerning whether to emulate or migrate wearable technology. Diverse biofeedback sensors exist, many of which remain beyond the mainstream media readily accessible to museums. Currently, garments embedded with electronics are in an
experimental stage.31 Prototypes produced by the clothing industry suggest possible
applications of sensors for daily use. During the nineties, manufacturers designed wearables which did not succeed in infiltrating the mass market. Major examples of this doomed endeavour include jackets lined with music-playing equipment, microchips and wires.32 Following these early experiments, Levi’s joined with Philips in 2000 to create the ICD+, a hooded jacket equipped with a mobile telephone, portable MP3 player and speakers.33 In addition to wearables combining fashion with entertainment, other garments have been designed for health purposes. The Georgia Institute of Technology invented the SmartShirt, manufactured by Sensatex, in the early 2000s. Made from "textiles that think" (the official slogan of Sensatex), the SmartShirt monitors the wearer’s biometric data and also assists athletes in analyzing and improving performance levels.34 A recently-developed biosensor brassiere monitors a woman’s fertility; blinking lights on this digital-age lingerie alert the wearer as to when she will be most likely to conceive.35
Conclusion
Possible strategies for documenting and preserving art comprised of body-machine interface garments frame art works as inextricable from the social and socializing bodies of
participants. Consequently, methods of conservation strive to maintain the work’s authenticity while forging new conceptions of user participation, somatic experience and bodily communication. Researchers investigating the conservation of wearable computer art occupy a privileged position from which to witness the ongoing dissemination of experimental sensor technology across artistic practices. The hybridity of high tech garment art, as a computer fusing fashion with craft, requires a reassessment of the limits of new media art in relation to its material, spatial and institutional dimensions.
Contemporary artists, exploring concepts of corporeality, space, and time, integrate
wearable technology into garments which gather and transmit vital signs emitted from the
bodies of participants, such as heart rate, respiration, temperature, motion and touch.
Compared with other forms of media art, including installations using video, laser discs,
virtual reality or gaming technology, sensor-based works generally remain an under-examined subject within art history.3 Moreover, research on the impact of such technology on society is in an embryonic stage. A comprehensive overview remains to be written concerning the applications of biotech garments in contemporary culture and the medical research from which wearables originated.4
In addition to their significant, though over-looked, role within recent artistic
practices, these devices engage with the growing problematic of preserving new media art. Body-machine interface works challenge traditional practices of art conservation. These objects consist of delicate, tiny electronic components intended for extensive physical manipulation by participants. Furthermore, wearables use forms of an experimental technology which has yet to infiltrate the mass market. Art works constructed out of fragile, sophisticated parts and specialized software are especially vulnerable to the inevitable ravages of physical deterioration and the acceleration of technological obsolescence. Techniques intended to restore and repair tangible works which are more or less physically stable, such as paintings and sculptures, are inadequate for contemporary time-based media art.
This paper neither outlines a proscriptive set of solutions for technical problems nor presents an exhaustive survey of the art historical interpretations and critical reception of wearable computer art. Rather, I adopt a historical and theoretical perspective to argue that the preservation and documentation of wearable new media art affirm the social nature of participants’ bodies. Potential strategies for conserving, recording, describing and displaying these works emphasize interactions among users which form networked communities united by shared flows of somatic data. Drawing from recent studies of new media preservation, this analysis develops the subsequent issues: conceptions of the body as information; efforts to
1 Ana Viseu, "Social Dimensions of Wearable Computers: An Overview," Technoetic Arts 1 (2003):78.
2 Steve Mann, "Wearable Computers as Means for Personal Empowerment," in The 1998 International Conference for Wearable Computing ICWC-98, Fairfax, VA (1998).
3For a brief overview of contemporary artists working with biotechnology and bodily stimulation, see
Stephen Wilson, "Body and Medicine," in Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science and Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), 149- 170.
4 Viseu, "Social Dimensions of Wearable Computers," 77. 2
record the performance of a community of participants; new understandings of exhibition spaces; and the connection between preservation, clothing and technology.
The conceptual relation between preservation and notions of the somatic expands the definition of an art work beyond its material and technological components. Worn and borne through space, these high tech accoutrements blur the boundaries between art object and the wearer. Hence, this paper underscores an extended understanding of the wearable computer art work as comprising both physical objects and performance. In addition, many of these works encompass installation art, as their exhibition sites may function as interactive environments embedded with sensors communicating with the miniature devices bedecking the participants.
Meanwhile, my analysis addresses three key art works to understand how biosensor art defies traditional conservation and museum practices. Each creation represents a defining moment in the historical development of computer garments in art. The 1993-1994 cyberSM project by Norwegian media artist Stahl Stenslie, the acclaimed pioneer of cybersex, and American Kirk Woolford, constitutes one of the earliest electronic interface suits. During the first staging of this piece, an individual in Paris engaged in an aggressive, long-distance erotic encounter with someone in Cologne via futuristic fetish wear connected to a computer network in conjunction with international telephone lines. Nearly a decade later, Canadian artists Thecla Schiphorst and Susan Kozel, whose works often combine digital media with dance performances, completed whisper in 2002. This project consists of a set of eccentric garments and accessories made of light fabrics and materials enclosing sensors meant to adorn the hands, ankles, neck and torso; through such devices, participants may send electronic signals to each other. Using whisper as a case study, the V2_Organization in Rotterdam conducted a major research endeavour entitled Capturing Unstable Media to develop new standards and practices for the documentation of electronic art. Finally, American Bill Seaman, who has produced video art and interactive installations since the 1980s, and Ingrid Verbauwhede, an electrical engineer from the University of California in Los Angeles, initiated The Poly-sensing Environment in 2002. Placed not only on clothing but also on articles of furniture and walls, sensors communicate in the Environment via GPS (Global Positioning System) technology. The transmission of data emitted from participants’ bodies triggers the projection of audio and/or visual clips compiled by Seaman. Montreal’s Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology (DLF) provided support for this project. Currently in progress, the work exists primarily as textual documentation, such as the brief descriptive essay included in the online database of the DLF Centre for Research and Documentation, as well as technical reports produced by researchers in collaboration with Seaman.5
The Body Informatic
Wearable garment performances foreground the social character of the body by
establishing personal interactions among users. Participants are able to communicate with each other through the sensors’ capacity to receive and transmit physiological information, such as excitability, pulse and tactile stimulation. Hence, the constant flow of shared bodily data engenders a fluctuating web of inter-relating social beings. The cohesion of this electronics-clad community of users emerges through the art work’s production of documentation about the body for artistic, conceptual and even sexual purposes.
The primacy of information for wearable works is historically related to the
emergence of posthuman discourses in the West during the final two decades of the 20th- 3
century. Variants of posthumanism address the possibilities of technology to augment and enhance the bodily functioning and life spans of human beings. Advances in genetic
modification, cloning, nanotechnology, prostheses and surgical procedures have galvanized intense debate over the meaning of humanness and the limits of fleshly corporeality. These contemporary scientific developments stimulated scholars from diverse disciplines, including bioethics, biomedicine, semiotics and cultural studies, to re-think conceptions of the body in relation to the immaterial and the technological. Some scholars have consequently posited the porosity of the boundary between the physical body and abstract information. Biomedical theorist and artist Eugene Thacker notes that the technophile "extropian" branch of posthumanism particularly emphasizes the conception of the body as information. This theory interprets the body according to an "informatic worldview," such that "when the body is considered essentially as information, this opens onto the possibility that the body may be programmed and reprogrammed (and whose predecessor is genetic engineering)."6 In other words, if the body is conceived of as a code of genetic information stored in DNA, technology may intervene to re-write this information. The intermingling of bodies and data which emerged in medical science has infiltrated contemporary popular culture. Typical examples of youth culture entertainment which approach the biological through the framework of information include virtual reality environments, as well as video games using avatars of beings meant to be modified and enhanced creatively by players.7
In relation to art, media theorist Boris Groys suggests that the contemporary era of "biopolitics" has induced a proliferation of documentation produced by artists. The mapping and modification of the body by technology establish pervasive social conditions that privilege the systematic accumulation of information not only in the sciences, but also in
the arts. Whereas scientists collate data gathered during research for study and re-
programming, artists produce audio and visual records to capture the conception, appearance
and demise of ephemeral objects and performances. Documentation refers to and records an art work, yet does not necessarily create a new, distinct work. The act of photographing or describing an ephemeral work in writing "is a result without a result."8 However, wearable media works complicate Groys’ analysis. His approach presupposes a distinction between the original art work and the visual or textual documents created by artists following the conception or execution of the work. Computer interface garments are both works of art and producers of information concerning participants’ ongoing encounters. Such records comprise part of the work along with the garments and sensors.
Discourses of the informatic body resonate with the exchange of somatic data within the social networks forged by wearable art performances. According to artists Schiphorst and Kozel, the playful whisper explores an understanding of the body as a set of networked,
5For on-line images of these works, see "Stenslie, Stahl: cyberSM," in Medien Kunst Netz/Media Art Net (2004).
6 Eugene Thacker, "Data Made Flesh: Biotechnology and the Discourse of the Posthuman," Cultural Critique 53 (2003): 86.
7 Robert Mitchell and Phillip Thurtle, "Fleshy Data: Semiotics, Information and the Body," in Semiotic Flesh: Information and the Human Body, eds. Robert Mitchell and Phillip Thurtle (Seattle: Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington Press, 2002), 1.
8 Boris Groys, "Art in the Age of Biopolitics: From Artwork to Art Documentation," in Documenta 1 Platform 5: Exhibition Catalogue (Kassel: Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2002), 108. 4
intercommunicating systems. The whisperers include gloves resembling webs, macramé and bandages, a device worn as a choker necklace and an airy, woven, cape-like garment; up to six individuals at a time may don the devices.9 These fragile-looking objects measure affect, breath, brainwaves, pulse and temperature. Participants may electronically send this physiological information to each other as well as to a computer workstation; subsequently, the central database server can communicate with the wearables which, in return, respond by sighing or tickling the wearer. Shared data is also made visually accessible in the form of images projected onto a screen in the performance site. Information received from users’ bodies is then archived for future retrieval by other participants.10
Meanwhile, the cyberSM project explores the transmission of electronic signals to
manifest the jolting physical presence of an absent body during a cyborgian sexual liaison.
Encased in latex and rubber "sensor/stimulator" suits, participants in different physical
locations communicate with each other through avatars, virtual nude bodies selected from
a bank of scanned images compiled by Stenslie and Woolford on a computer. When one
participant selects an area on the avatar body of their remote partner, a "tactile" message
of desire greets the recipient in the form of a shock conducted through electrical stimulators,
heat pads and vibrating sensors adorning the erogenous zones of the futuristic garb.11 The
transmission of signals through computers, fiber optic technology and sensors creates an
erotics of aggressive absence as cyberSM paradoxically establishes a visceral, yet impersonal
physical contact between anonymous individuals across geographical distance and temporal
lapse.
Capturing Performance
Bodily movement comprises a socializing process. Besides receiving and sending
flows of data, the user’s body participates in and helps to build a community of wearers
through kinesthetic engagement with the surroundings and other bodies. The compactness
and portability of sensor garments enable participants to meander through a performance or
exhibition space with the electronic devices. This discussion previously analyzed documentation in relation to physiological information. Yet, recording exhibitions of
wearable works also relates to the archiving of the gestures, emotional responses, personal
contacts and spatial trajectories of users. Members of the public, rather than artists or hired
performers, are often invited to don the garments and activate the electronic equipment.
Whereas abundant documentation exists concerning performances enacted by contemporary
artists, recordings of the involvement of the public are less extensive. In relation to
wearables, records of wearers’ experiences are essential for representing artists’ intentions for the use and appearance of the objects. As individual material artifacts, biosensor art works are of limited aesthetic and conceptual significance. Designed to be put on, handled, and removed, wearable computer works best convey their performative significance through
9"whisper During DEAF03," in V2_ Organization: Capturing Unstable Media (2003).
10Thecla Schiphorst and Susan Kozel, "Pulp Fashion: Wearable Archi(ves)tectures," in V2_Organization: Capturing Unstable Media (2002).
11Stephen Wilson, Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science and Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
2002), 164-165. For a discussion of cyborgs, sexuality and tele-presence in contemporary new media art and cinema, see the article by media theorist Marie-Luise Angerer, "The Making of…Desire, Digital," in Medien Kunst Netz/ Media Art Net (2004).
documentation that describes users’ participation.
The V2_Organization’s Capturing Unstable Media project researched user
interaction during the exhibition of whisper in a theatre called the Rotterdamse Schouwburg, during DEAF03_Data Knitting, the 2003 edition of the Dutch Electronic Art Festival in Rotterdam. The V2 staff produced a series of photographic records and a digital video of the movements and behaviours of the public. Extensive written documentation accompanied the visual sources. As a result, this case study mapped "a restricted metadata" for describing users’ involvement with the work. The metadata addresses the spatial and temporal aspects of the work, and outlines statistical reports about the number of visitors present. V2 notably assesses the degree of intensity of participants’ experiences as determined by levels of interactivity. V2 also proposes that user interviews and video recordings of visitors supplement metadata.12
The documentary approach employed by the San Francisco-based Dance Heritage
Coalition in the LADD (Learning Applications to Document Dance) project of 1997
suggests another perspective toward recording movement and performance pertinent to the challenges posed by wearables. Unlike V2, LADD focused exclusively on developing audiovisual recordings, promoting the use of a dynamic, two-camera system to document
dance. The pair of cameras films the subtleties of choreographed movement and the
ambiance of the stage from a broad range of angles.13
Meanwhile, the research proposal for The Poly-sensing Environment by Bill
Seaman and Ingrid Verbauwhede exemplifies the potential for art works to archive
performance. The work consequently appropriates the attributes of a database. Wireless
sensors placed on walls, furniture and clothing continuously monitor and store data derived
from the movements, bodily heat and chemical makeup of participants. A central computer
then combines these findings with eclectic images, videos, texts and sound clips to be collated
by Seaman. The server records users’ engagements with the various surfaces of the
environment, such that participants can access diagrams charting the behaviour patterns and
paths of previous users. Maps and grids re-trace the sequences in which participants have
triggered or de-activated different sensors.14
Consequently, the Environment’s capacity to serve as an interactive archive implies that this work approaches documentation from the perspective of narrative. Visitors generate accounts of their personalized, multi-sensorial experience of Seaman’s creation. This narrative will expand and ramify throughout the work’s existence as successive participants contribute their bodily data and are able to access records left by previous visitors. However, whisper layers fact with fiction, thereby countering the claim to veracity and historical
12 Sandra Fauconnier and Rens Frommé, "Capturing Unstable Media: Summary of Research," in
V2_ Organization: Capturing Unstable Media (2003).
(accessed 21 February, 2006). For an alternate model of metadata used to document new media art, see Richard Rinehart, "A System of Formal Notation for Scoring Works of Digital and Variable Media Art," in Archiving the Avant-Garde (2006).
13 Dance Heritage Coalition, Report on the Findings of the Learning Applications to Dance (LADD) Project (1997).
14 "Bill Seaman and Ingrid Verbauwhede: Poly-sensing Environment," in Centre for Research and Documentation Database: Daniel Langlois Foundation (2002).
accuracy associated with archival records. As Kozel and Schiphorst elaborate, "the whispers can revisit and reconstruct past views as it progresses. The past is not replaced, it is augmented and restructured as the system perception grows."15 Hence, the work refashions documentation as a creative process which continually sifts through and re-configures the history of viewers’ performances.
Organic Exhibition Spaces
Recording users’ interactions with wearable computers underscores the importance of the exhibition space as a social environment. Documentation may thus engender new descriptions and conceptualizations of the spatial role of the museum and gallery. Howard Besser has analyzed the incompatibility between conventional preservation strategies and the fluctuating, variable qualities of time-based new media art constructed from equipment destined for obsolescence. Within his discussion of new practices for conserving electronic works, he also addresses the central role of the exhibition site and its historical value. He argues cogently that preserving new media art requires the documentation of exhibition spaces and display conditions, which would thus enable future re-installments of the work to acknowledge and accurately represent the historical context in which the art was originally produced and exhibited.16 Furthermore, documenting how a work was shown in an exhibition space may enable museum and gallery personnel to fulfill the intentions of artists in relation to the aesthetic significance, appearance, atmosphere and functioning integral to the work. In certain cases, knowledge of the original display may be of greater relevance to art historians attempting to reconstruct a work’s exhibition history and its initial impact on critics’ responses. For preservationists concerned with assuring the work’s fitness for display, the appearance of the original exhibition may not necessarily yield the most practical or interesting template.
Regardless of the precise display conditions, a paradoxical relationship exists
between wearable new media works and space. Ostensibly, certain of these performative
works are site-specific as they explore the flow of data and the forging of personal contacts between individuals in a given setting. whisper incorporates wall projections, while the Poly-sensing Environment explores the transmission and reception of data within an idiosyncratic installation. However, computer garments also undermine site-specificity due to their portability. The user’s body acts as the major exhibition site for the sensor-lined garments, usurping the function of the museum or gallery as the architectural and physical frame of the work. Hence, nomadic electronic garments may accommodate a range of potential exhibition environments. For the staging of cyberSM, the artists could have chosen to establish a virtual sexual encounter between partners located in any two sites; that they selected venues in Paris and Cologne is of secondary importance to this experiment in tele-presence.
Thus, the display of wearables departs from dominant forms of exhibiting and relating to art, due to the fusion of viewer/participant with the art work, as well as the decreased emphasis on architectural space. Within the history of display practices, the conception of an individual acting as an exhibition site in communication with other people and objects diverges from the conventional experiential relation between the sterile white cube gallery
15Schiphorst and Kozel, "Pulp Fashion" (accessed 21 February, 2006).
16Howard Besser, "The Longevity of Electronic Art," in International Cultural Heritage Informatics
Meeting (2001).
space and the pulsating body. Carol Duncan’s landmark sociological study of the art museum as a ritual site posits that the exhibition aesthetic of the modernist white cube distinguishes viewers from art works both conceptually and spatially. Duncan observes that the emphasis on strategically well-lit displays and the careful horizontal alignment of works at eye level affirm the primacy of visual experience. Hence, display strategies structure an objectifying relationship between observing subject and art object. The white cube deliberately restricts the range of sensorial input to the viewer as works are spatially isolated in uncluttered, pristine environments characterized by large expanses of bare, unadorned wall. The cool aesthetic of the modern art institution emphasizes the architecture as a functional container and a set of solid surfaces.17
However, the descriptive terminology used by artists to qualify exhibition spaces for biosensor art de-emphasizes architectural form and dimensions. While there exists no standard lexicon to classify venues for wearable technology, artists’ informal nomenclatures
vividly re-imagine the exhibition sites of the digital age as social spaces based on the model
of a living, responsive, organic entity. Seaman describes the location for his wireless sensors
as an enveloping "poly-sensing environment," a cybernetic space inspired by the processes of
human cognition.18 Designating whisper as "a performance piece in a social space," Schiphorst and Kozel elaborate that "the space of the installation can best be described as a
networked ecosystem."19 As a result, biological analogies employed by artists implicitly liken
the exhibition locale to the inter-related bodies of participants.
By re-conceptualizing display spaces in relation to the public’s free interactions,
idiosyncratic movements and desires, contemporary artists implicitly craft a vision of the
museum as being unhampered by social restrictions or cultural elitism. Hence, the living,
amorphous ecosystems of biosensor art seemingly defy the social control which has
underpinned the discourse of the modern museum as a physical entity and institution. The
status of museums as state institutions of cultural authority is historically associated with the
policing of potentially unruly bodies in the presence of enshrined works of art. Today,
surveillance technology, security systems and protocols for not touching the works regulate
social behavior in the museum. The birth of the art museum in the West was intertwined with
the establishment’s desire to instill order through the public display of power: following the French Revolution, works of art seized from defeated nations were triumphantly displayed
before citizens in the royal palace of the Louvre. Previously, many art collections were
ensconced in royal palaces and monastic buildings, shielded from public access. The act of
exhibiting art for the public therefore legitimized and consolidated the victory of the
revolutionary forces against France’s foreign adversaries and the aristocratic ancient regime.20
Despite the freedom of movement elicited by biosensor art within exhibition sites,
wearables nevertheless perpetuate a variant of the tension between personal enrichment and social control associated with the museum. Wearable computers have transferred this problematic from the museum to the body, resulting in a new tension pitting user empowerment against external surveillance. During the 1990s, proponents argued that wearable computers empowered users by providing continuous access to information through a device endowed with "the possibility of augmenting the human body’s sensory and cognitive abilities."21 In 1998, Steve Mann optimistically heralded wearable computing as a technology which would equip users with exclusive control over the personal information
17 Carol Duncan, Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums (New York: Routledge, 1995), 17.
18 "Bill Seaman and Ingrid Verbauwhede: Poly-sensing Environment" (accessed 11 February, 2006).
19 Schiphorst and Kozel, "Pulp Fashion" (accessed 21 February, 2006).
20Jean-Louis Déotte, "Rome, the Archetypal Museum, and the Louvre, the Negation of Division," in Grasping the World: The Idea of the Museum, eds. Donald Preziosi and Claire Farago (London: Ashgate, 2004), 59-61.
21 Viseu, "Social Dimensions of Wearable Computers," 78. 8
stored in these devices during an era in which surveillance technologies had increasingly pervaded daily life.22 In response, critics warned of the inevitable Orwellian co-opting of wearables by authorities to maintain social order and employee productivity.23 Likewise, thorny privacy issues surface in new media art. The sensors used by whisper and The Poly-sensing Environment receive and disclose users’ personal vital signs in a public venue. The body’s hidden, internal data is made external and communicable, sent to other participants, projected onto a screen in the exhibition space or posted on-line. Moreover, only by removing the garment can users prevent the devices from monitoring bodily information. Electronic surveillance of somatic information ironically reinforces participants’ autonomy, as wearers may divest themselves of the intrusive devices at will.
Preserving Hybridity: Technology and Clothing
The relation between wearable technology and the social body may be further
understood by analyzing these works as articles of clothing. Garments have an inherently
social function as they constitute visible, physical signifiers of the wearer’s membership in a group or claimed affiliation with a culture or subculture. Wearables overlap the categories of clothing, uniform and prosthesis by intimately enveloping the wearer, symbolically marking the body as belonging to a community and enhancing physical abilities. Furthermore, the performativity of wearable art bestows a marked theatrical aura to the devices, which thereby attain the status of costume and ornament. Visibly unifying wearers within an electronic community of performing bodies, these garments are aesthetic, idiosyncratic markers of behaviour and contexts which lie outside of the quotidian experience of mundane life. The delicate, mesh-like garments comprising whisper are designed to be worn over the participants’ regular clothing or as jewelry on exposed parts of the body. These objects, therefore, are not substitutes for clothing, but rather function as temporary accessories deriving their significance from an artistic context. Thus, the futuristic and pseudo-military style of the constrictive, shiny black latex and rubber sensor suits of cyberSM inscribes participants within a transient foray in a sado-masochistic subculture.
The dual role of wearables as computers and garments classifies these works as hybrid
or mixed media objects requiring multiple preservation strategies. For instance, conservation
techniques used by historical and anthropological museums for textiles and clothing might be
applied toward the future restoration of the materials surrounding the sensors. The electronic
components would have to be replaced, emulated or migrated, depending on the condition of
the art work and availability of parts. Computer clothing therefore disrupts the fundamental
shift in conservation approaches described by Howard Besser. Pointing to examples of video
and internet art, he notes that the lack of fixity characteristic of electronic works requires that preservation techniques "shift from the paradigm of repairing and saving a physical object to that of maintaining a set of disembodied artistic content over time."24 However, the art works to which Besser refers differ distinctly from wearables in that the materiality and aesthetic quality of the equipment for video and web art may be of lesser significance than the screen, the projected image and the space in which viewers interact with the work. In contrast, wearable technology is framed by materials deliberately selected for their unique look and texture, as a sensual reminder of the continuing importance of materiality for electronic art.
For instance, whisper’s title comprises an acronym emphasizing the objects’ proximity to the body: "wearable, handheld, intimate, sensory, personal, expressive, responsive."25 The
22 Mann, "Wearable Computers as Means for Personal Empowerment" (accessed 1 April, 2006).
23 Viseu, "Social Dimensions of Wearable Computers," 80.
24 Besser, "The Longevity of Electronic Art" (accessed 13 January, 2006).
25 Schiphorst and Kozel, "Pulp Fashion" (accessed 21 February, 2006). 9
whisperers combine sophisticated electronics, such as speakers, sensors and motors, with inexpensive tactile materials ranging from knitted wool, paper, latex and fabrics.26 In addition to the intercommunication between sensors, this work explores the phenomenological experience of being lightly adorned with fragile, irregularly textured objects. Donning the whisperers suggests a playful, whimsical rite, while the handmade appearance of these high tech garments evokes traditional women’s crafts, such as knitting and spinning. Meanwhile, cyberSM explores the experience of rigid confinement within thick, close-fitting outfits made of opaque, non-porous textiles. Stenslie and Woolford’s sleek black suits aspire to the status of fashion by emulating genuine fetish gear. Photographs of cyberSM often illustrate a fit young woman modeling one of the outfits accessorized with high boots. Such images thus evoke the stereotypical aesthetic of kinky decadence affiliated with sado-masochism. For both of these art works, preserving the physical integrity and documenting the cultural associations of the materials of the garments are essential for maintaining the conceptual value of the whisperers and the cyber-suits.
As a result, the hybrid nature of electronic garments resists reductive categorizations
defined strictly according to media. Hence, the Variable Media Questionnaire offers a viable
approach toward assessing the unique preservation requirements of these works. Launched in
2003 by New York’s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, this questionnaire, aimed primarily
at artists, devises potential preservation decisions in relation to what curator Jon Ippolito
designates as "medium-independent, mutually-compatible descriptions of each artwork, which we call behaviors."27 According to this set of descriptive terms, art works may be
identified as belonging to one or more of the following behaviours: networked, encoded,
duplicated, reproduced, interactive, performed, installed and contained.28 The flexibility of
this schema permits wearables to be understood from multiple perspectives. For instance,
by approaching technological garments as "performed," conservationists can address "how to reenact original instructions in a new context."29 This category would apply to wearables which emphasize a particular relation with their surroundings or demand participants’ choreographed engagement. Moreover, the categories of "interactive" and "networked" accurately delineate participants’ inter-communications through the transmission of data.
The relationship between clothing and the electronic devices suggests that the sensors have more than a uniquely technical role. Curator Pip Laurenson’s approach to conserving time-based new media equipment affirms that the function of electronic components depends upon the specific art work as well as the original intentions of the artist. Visible computer parts, for example, may contribute to the aesthetic, conceptual and historical significance of certain works; in such cases, preservationists must strive to maintain the integrity of the appearance of the equipment, along with its operating capability. However, Laurenson considers technological components concealed from the viewer to be exclusively functional. Such devices may thus be substituted by similar equipment without causing significant change to the authenticity of the art work’s form or meaning.30 Concealed within costumes, the sensors used by whisper and cyberSM contribute little to the aesthetic value of the
26 "whisper," in V2_ Organization: Capturing Unstable Media (2002).
27 Jon Ippolito, "Accommodating the Unpredictable: The Variable Media Questionnaire," in Permanence Through Change: The Variable Media Approach, eds. Alain Depocas, Jon Ippolito and Caitlin Jones (Montreal: Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology; New York: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2003), 48.
28 Ippolito, "Accommodating the Unpredictable,"46.
29 Ippolito, "Accommodating the Unpredictable,"49.
30 Pip Laurenson, "The Management of Display Equipment in Time-Based Media Installations," in Modern Art, New Museums: Contributions to the Bilbao Congress (2004).
garments. The intriguing appearance of the clothing detracts from the complexity of the technology used by artists. Yet, the sensors transcend mere technical worth as they are integral to the conceptual mechanics of networked interaction as a form of communication and socializing. Biosensors therefore transform the cultural significance and ways of relating to the world commonly associated with clothing. Unlike everyday street garb, wearables produced by artists do not aim to protect the wearer or express personal tastes. Rather, electronic garments constitute permeable boundaries between the wearer’s body and the outside, sites where the secrets of the body’s inner workings are made public, as in whisper, and where external shocks penetrate the submissive participant of cyberSM.
Knowledge of the functioning, technological drawbacks and usefulness of bio-
medical and commercial examples of computer clothing could assist conservationists’ decisions concerning whether to emulate or migrate wearable technology. Diverse biofeedback sensors exist, many of which remain beyond the mainstream media readily accessible to museums. Currently, garments embedded with electronics are in an
experimental stage.31 Prototypes produced by the clothing industry suggest possible
applications of sensors for daily use. During the nineties, manufacturers designed wearables which did not succeed in infiltrating the mass market. Major examples of this doomed endeavour include jackets lined with music-playing equipment, microchips and wires.32 Following these early experiments, Levi’s joined with Philips in 2000 to create the ICD+, a hooded jacket equipped with a mobile telephone, portable MP3 player and speakers.33 In addition to wearables combining fashion with entertainment, other garments have been designed for health purposes. The Georgia Institute of Technology invented the SmartShirt, manufactured by Sensatex, in the early 2000s. Made from "textiles that think" (the official slogan of Sensatex), the SmartShirt monitors the wearer’s biometric data and also assists athletes in analyzing and improving performance levels.34 A recently-developed biosensor brassiere monitors a woman’s fertility; blinking lights on this digital-age lingerie alert the wearer as to when she will be most likely to conceive.35
Conclusion
Possible strategies for documenting and preserving art comprised of body-machine interface garments frame art works as inextricable from the social and socializing bodies of
participants. Consequently, methods of conservation strive to maintain the work’s authenticity while forging new conceptions of user participation, somatic experience and bodily communication. Researchers investigating the conservation of wearable computer art occupy a privileged position from which to witness the ongoing dissemination of experimental sensor technology across artistic practices. The hybridity of high tech garment art, as a computer fusing fashion with craft, requires a reassessment of the limits of new media art in relation to its material, spatial and institutional dimensions.
31 Wilson, Information Arts, 64.
32 Anne Farren and Andrew Hutchison, "Cyborgs, New Technology and the Body: The Changing Nature of Garments," Fashion Theory 8 (2004): 463-466.
33 Viseu, "Social Dimensions of Wearable Computers," 79.
34 "SmartShirt System," in Sensatex Website (2005).
35 Wilson, Information Arts, 64-65. 11
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