Abstract
Many of the relatively recent experiments and realisations in the field of “fashion tech”—a combination of fashion design with engineering, science and interaction/user experience design—try to shape some sort of artificially intelligent systems around the human body, which in many cases move, breath and react to the environment around them. Although far from the social aim of health biorobotics, such researches have many elements in common with the latest advancements in the area of robotics related to the body, where the focus is often to enhance the wearability of the body-related devices, quite often through the employment of “smart textiles.” The aim of this chapter is therefore to describe and analyse these parallel and partially intersecting developments, by presenting a review of the main projects recently realised by artists and designers who have collaborated with scientists and engineers towards the creation of “robotic dresses.”
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Notes
- 1.
The Robot Companions for Citizens (RCC), or RoboCom, is a large scale European interdisciplinary research and development initiative, whose aim is the creation of a new generation of robots that will co-exist and work together with humans. The whole programme is coordinated by Paolo Dario (director of the BioRobotics Institute of the “Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna di Pisa”) and involves 96 principal investigators from 73 Institutions.
- 2.
See image at: http://www.slashgear.com/soft-exosuit-gets-darpa-favor-will-give-soldiers-superhuman-legs-12346076/. Accessed 15 Jan 2015.
- 3.
Founding director and fellow of the Robotics Society of Japan, professor Tachi’s research encompasses robotics, augmented reality, virtual reality, and haptics.
- 4.
See image at: http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/scientists-develop-light-bending-invisibility-cloak-that-works-across-several-frequencies. Accessed 15 Jan 2015.
- 5.
See video at: http://vimeo.com/32964255. Accessed 15 Jan 2015.
- 6.
See image at: http://inspirationist.net/incertitudes-sound-activated-clothing-by-ying-gao/. Accessed 15 Jan 2015.
- 7.
See image at: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/2006.251a-c. Accessed 15 Jan 2015.
- 8.
“Humanoid social robots … are not a medium through which humans interact, but rather a medium with which humans interact” (Zhao 2006, p. 402).
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Danese, E. (2015). Fashion Tech and Robotics. In: Vincent, J., Taipale, S., Sapio, B., Lugano, G., Fortunati, L. (eds) Social Robots from a Human Perspective. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15672-9_11
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