Last night was the opening of the Gallery Project‘s show “Imaging the Future” (and also my birthday!). In March, the curators asked me to create a piece that examined what clothing might be like in the future. My response was to a.) design a method for consumers to download patterns for custom-tailored clothing from the internet, and b.) create a digitally custom-tailored dress out of laser-cut wool felt. You can read more about the project, entitled “Cyber Fiber,” in my artist statement below. For now enjoy these pictures from the reception and I promise to create a more complete presentation for the project by the end of June.

Artist Statement:

Mass production has changed the ways that humans design, make, and consume products. In the past all goods were made individually by the hands of skilled craftsmen. Then in the late 19th century, the assembly line dramatically changed the way stuff is made; cheap, uniform products became readily available, creating a novel distance between consumer and product. The post-World War II manufacturing boom exponentially increased the speed and reach of that change. Now in the internet age, we are moving to a place somewhere in between the completely hand-made items of the distant past and the mass-manufactured products of the past century. The internet has broadened the market available to craftsmen, and allowed them to sell their wares globally. At the same time, rapid prototyping has facilitated a seemingly contradictory change that allows mass manufacturers to produce custom pieces for each of their customers. The Cyber Fiber project envisions a future in which consumers have the resources to download and fabricate their own customized products and upload their own designs for others to use. If people wanted this dress, they could go online, upload a digital model of their bodies to a clothing a website, have the pattern of their choice custom tailored to their 3D model, then download the pattern to cut and fabricate the garment themselves. Though not quite this automated, the fabrication process for the piece on display was very similar to the process above. In this case, once the pattern was generated, it was used to quickly laser-cut a 1/4″ thick sheet of 100% wool felt. Once cut, the felt pieces were equipped with snap buttons and clipped together to complete the garment.

The summer is over, and Gabi Weinreich, Joseph Curtin, John Bell, and I have Returned from our various summer hideaways to reconvene in Ann Arbor. Our early fall meetings have yielded some stimulating new ideas, and a clearer, more exciting vision of our digital violin’s form and function has crystallized. One development in particular shows tremendous research potential: a method to include active feedback, which will allow us to alter the instrument’s feel and playability on the fly. Implementing such a mechanism could produce many innovative practical applications as well as valuable research opportunities, and we are excited to explore these in the coming months.

Creating an electric violin capable of sounding like a high-quality acoustic instrument (e.g. Stradvarius, Guarneri del Gesu, or Amati) is a difficult task, one which has not yet been achieved on a marketable scale. Over the summer, John Bell has worked hard to program a proof of concept which will test our approach to synthesizing the sound of an acoustic violin. He is using an FPGA board to prototype and will design custom hardware once programming is finalized.

My efforts have been divided among several areas. While creating production-quality 3D models of certain essential areas of the violin, I have also worked to design more efficient bridges. Moreover, I have devoted substantial energy to the visualization and development of numerous design concepts for the digital violin. The recent evolution of the project has dramatically altered the technical requirements of the instrument, however, so most of these designs will need to be scrapped or greatly adapted. All in all, though, things are coming together well. I look forward to our continued progress on the project.

Above, left: the team (left to right: Joseph Curtin, John Bell, Alex Sobolev, Gabi Weinreich); right: the FPGA board.

A few months ago I discovered a new bike shop in Ann Arbor that specializes in restoring old steel frame bikes, converting fixed gears, and performing bike maintenance. The owners, Michael Firn and Joe Bollinger, are great guys and we bartered a service exchange: a poster for their shop in exchange for a tune up for an old bike that I had inherited. This poster was designed in collaboration with my good friend Alex Lee. We based the design on badges that you find on many bikes incorporating the company’s existing chainring/tree logo. The poster also gave me an opportunity to finally use a bicycle themed paisley pattern I had designed the summer before. There is also a chance to continue the project by turning this design into a physical sign for the shop.

Since Sic-Transit Cycles does not yet have an official website, here are a few links to them elsewhere on the web:

Facebook

Flicker

Yelp

Their phone number is (734) 327-6900, and the shop is open every day from 11 am until 4 pm, and located at 1033 Broadway Road, Ann Arbor, MI, 48105. Please visit them if you have a chance.