Mia WAVE

I attended Sara Hendren’s IDM talk not too long ago and although I wasn’t able to stay for the whole duration of her talk, it was a very interesting and compelling talk. Her works revolve a lot around disabilities and universality functions. She first asked the audience to think about our own inspirations which I thought was a really interesting and fun opener to help us understand where we gain inspiration from. Although my city as a site project is not based on anything revolving around disabilities, she was very eye-opening towards thinking of newer ways to design items and reconceptualize our perceptions of things. For example, she showed a project revolving around dancing and people who use wheelchairs, and showed us how she had one of her classes learn under a dancer who is in a wheelchair and how to optimize space and the physics of wheelchairs in order to be able to create stunning dances. Additionally, she talked about chairs that are padded and pressurized to mimic hugs and provide people with a feeling of emotional comfort. 

Project 2 Final Iteration - 5/8/19 3:15:01 PM

After receiving feedback from the first demo of my first prototype from 2 weeks ago, I decided to change a bit of the content and the graphics of my project. Unfortunately, I had previously planned to use a friend’s iPad for this project but her iPad had issues so I had to optimize this project for a laptop. 

I got a lot of feedback from fellow classmates that they would like to see more interaction rewards such as animations and graphics. Additionally, some people said they would’ve liked more clarity on the sort of information I provided. I planned out how to implement these ideas as seen here:

I think one of the most important changes to my project is the incorporation of a QR code so that users who interact with this project can have access to it later on. However, it looks terrible on mobile since I didn’t optimize it for tiny screens, only for computer screens.

I built a physical washing machine frame for my laptop out of cardboard because I wanted to reinforce the idea of “upcycling” and didn’t want to use brand new cardboard when I could easily use something in the scraps for this project. 

After creating the physical frame and completing my code, here’s what my project looked like:

Live demo of my project:

There are still a bit of technical issues I can resolve in the code of my project that I would’ve like to have worked out if I had more time for this project. Additionally, I would’ve liked to have optimized this for an iPad. 

I set the machine up in one of the NYU dorms laundry rooms for users to interact with on Sunday, May 5 from 1pm - 5pm. I did some work on one of the couches while I watched students interact with the machine. In the span of those 4 hours, around 9 people in total interacted with my project out of an estimated 15 different people that I saw walk in and out of the laundry room. 

week 13 constant output choreo project: “Paris in the Rain” by Lauv second iteration

week 12 constant output choreo project: freestyle to “Paris in the Rain” by Lauv

After receiving feedback from my presentation, I decided that I wanted to try the mini washing machine/interactive screen. I was inspired by subway station screens that are mainly display and usually display all sorts of information and sometimes they’re interactive. I made a sort of interactive informational site that I want to have on an iPad and ideally I would see this set up in a laundry dorm with a frame around the iPad screen mimicking that of a washing machine. I’m still not sure what to make the frame out of because I want it to be environmentally conscious so lasercutting it out of acrylic is something that would look nice but wouldn’t be too ethical. 

For my city as a site project, I wanted to research textile waste in the fashion industry as NYC is a major site for fashion. I previously did some readings on eco-fabrics and how many clothes are made from fabrics containing microplastics which contributes to ocean pollution when being washed: https://miawav.tumblr.com/post/183750536105/reading-response-327-fashions-interest-in

https://miawav.tumblr.com/post/183917173170/reading-response-43-more-than-ever-our

Since my target audience is NYU students, I decided to do a bit of field research by creating a poll for students to input their answers and made a poster asking where students get their fashion from. I set it up in the laundry rooms located in the NYU dorms on a Sunday (the most popular time for students to do laundry) as seen here:

And these were the results: 

Today’s generation seems to be more environmentally conscientious as there is already action and thinking towards fashion sustainability on campus:

http://entrepreneur.nyu.edu/blog/2018/05/14/sustainablefashion/

http://www.nyu.fashion/blog/2018/2/28/what-why-how-sustainable-fashion-and-where-to-get-it-near-campus

 Thinking about the accessibility of fabrics and conscientiousness of students with fast-fashion and sustainability, here were my prototype ideas of how I could help bring awareness to this situation: 

week 10 constant output choreo project: freestyle to “Sunflower” by Post Malone & Swae Lee

In this article, I read more about the synthetics that 60% of clothing is made of these days (polyester, nylon, acrylic, etc.) and how these fabrics are made of fabric. Not knowing much about different fabric materials beforehand, I was surprised to hear that these fabrics contain plastic and largely contribute to our pollution problem. More surprisingly, the way these fabrics are polluting the waters is by being washed in washing machines and contaminating the water supply. The microplastics contained in these fabrics pose an issue since they’re difficult to filter out from the water supply and are toxic to not only marine wildlife but also to us as we are also prone to having ingested microplastics. 

A big discussion the author poses in this article is the issue of accessibility, as often, synthetic fabrics are the most inexpensive and attainable and not everyone can have the privilege of attaining clothing made of alternative fabrics. Some solutions the author suggest is that change needs to be systemic with the way washing machines are designed and how there need to be better filters. Additionally, on the consumer side, we can do better by limiting our washes and reducing the amount of clothes we own. I think these solutions are important for my project and research in interviewing local organizations such as FabScrap who work with designer and textile companies to recycle fabrics as well as the rise of consignment/second-hand clothing stores that are popular among our environmentally-conscious Gen Z in recycling clothing and reducing textile waste.

(My visual map of James after we interviewed each other)

We found some commonalities in our interests in music and exploring and nature, and decided to create a sort of collage video featuring James’s music and my drawn animations to highlight our interests:

I read an article about the fashion industry’s research and innovation with alternative textiles to not only combat textile waste footprint but also to discover fashion innovation trends for their brands.

To me it was interesting and inspiring to read about how some of these high-end labels that I’ve heard about are researching different ways to incorporate different materials in order to produce beautiful garments, even those that are ready to wear and showcase in a runway show such as for Stella McCartney’s spider-inspired silk golden dress for MoMA. I haven’t really heard much from the production-end of designers about how they are combatting or taking action on textile waste as usually all the efforts done to combat it have been done on the consumer’s end, such as with organizations in NYC like FabScrap. I didn’t know many labs dedicated to researching and producing these alternative materials already existed, and that brands such as Adidas and The North Face are already partnering up with these labs which was also discussed in this article. Even the powerhouse label Chanel is experimenting with paper yarns and 3D printing as a material. 

Overall I think this article gave me some really good information on what the people at the top of the textile industry are already doing in response to textile waste and sustainability since I’ve only been exposed to what consumers have been doing about this issue previously.