August on -empyre-: Wearable Technologies

August on -empyre- soft-skinned space: Wearable Technologies


with guests Heidi Kumao, Katherine Moriwaki and Florian 'Floyd' Mueller



This month on -empyre-, we venture into the world of wearable
technologies in the context of social and public art practice.
Katherine Moriwaki (US) is an artist and researcher investigating
clothing accessories as the active conduit through which people
create network relationships in public space. Florian 'Floyd'
Mueller (AU) designs interfaces that deliberately require intense
physical effort to facilitate social connectedness between remote
participants. Heidi Kumao's (US) incisive feminist practice
currently investigates the RFID tags that industry is adopting for
product tracking, the government for border control and public
libraries for automatic checkout.

Join us at

<http://www.subtle.net/empyre>






August guest biographies:



———————-> Katherine Moriwaki is an artist and
researcher investigating clothing and accessories as the active
conduit through which people create network relationships in public
space. After receiving her Masters degree from the Interactive
Telecommunications Program at New York University's Tisch School of
the Arts, Katherine co-developed and taught the ground-breaking
collaboration studio "Fashionable Technology" at Parsons School of
Design. Currently a Ph.D. Candidate in the Networks and
Telecommunications Research Group at Trinity College Dublin, her work
has appeared in IEEE Spectrum Magazine, and numerous festivals and
conferences including numer.02 at Centre Georges Pompidou (02), Break
2.2 (03), Ubicomp (03,04), eculture fair (03), Transmediale (04), CHI
(04), ISEA (04), Ars Electronica (04), Wired NextFest (05), and
Siggraph (05). She is a 2004 recipient of the Araneum Prize from the
Spanish Ministry for Science and Technology and Fundacion ARCO.
<http://www.kakirine.com>



———————-> Florian 'Floyd' Mueller is a Principal
Scientist in the ICT Centre, leading the "Connecting People" group at
CSIRO - Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation,
Australia. His research interests are in novel interfaces that help
people to connect, to media as well as to other people, creating a
more seamless connection between humans and technology. He proposed
the concept of Exertion Interfaces: interfaces that deliberately
require intense physical effort to facilitate social connectedness
between remote participants at <http://exertioninterfaces.com>
Mueller earned his first degree in Digital Media from Furtwangen,
Germany. He received his second degree in Multimedia from Griffith
University in Australia and a Masters degree in Media Arts and
Sciences from the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, USA. He has worked for
industry and research companie such as Virtual Artists, Springer
Verlag, Xerox PARC, FX Palo Alto Laboratory MIT, University of
Melbourne and Media Lab Europe. Floyd's research centers on the
challenge of creating an interface that is engaging and fun, not
simply functional. <http://floydmueller.com>



————————> Heidi Kumao is an artist who dissects
ordinary social interactions using new media and animation, kinetic/
electronic sculpture, and performance art. Her work takes the form
of intimate robotic/kinetic installations, single channel videos and
animations, and wearable electronics. She uses technology to address
feminist issues and insert a femal point of view into the world of
high-tech innovation. 'WiredWear