#fabric map

7.18

I absolutely adore the maps that Adriana has embroidered. Transforming “urban fabric” into a tangible object, she has hand stitched maps of Union Square and Beirut onto large pieces of fabric.

While working on the SPF project, I was inspired to incorporate these maps into our social awareness campaign. Mustafa Baalbeki and his iphone app 961 are also a precedent for this project. His app allows Beiruitis to easily determine when their scheduled outage occurs.  My concept is to embroider the neighborhoods of Beirut onto a tshirt and display the electrical grid of the neighborhoods through LEDs powered by solar panels. The LEDs will run on a timer and show (in real time) which neighborhoods are receiving power from EDL. I’ve also been dying to get into soft circuits and wearable technology, so this is my first baby project in playing with it. Yeah!

7.20

I forgot how much fun hand crafts are. I should really sew more often. The stitching has commenced! Adriana is helping me embroider the shirts. While she stitched one, I worked on the circuit for the LEDs. This is my first time using the LilyPad! It’s actually my first time using arduino for one of my own projects besides the 2 times I used it in CC lab. I went through a few tutorials online and badabing badaboom, we are in business.

Unfortunately I didn’t bring a rechargeable battery pack with me that talks to the mini solar cells I brought. Parts are so hard to find here, so I may just suck it up and buy a pre-made solar powered battery pack. I have a confession. When I realized I couldn’t easily use my solar cells, I thought, “Okay fine, I’ll just use a regular battery and explain to people that ideally this shirt would run on solar power.”  This is the exact problem we’ve been trying to resolve in Beirut! Instead of resolving the issue with my shirt, I resorted to privatizing power to Duracell. Shame on me.

7.22

Concept redirection! Adriana finished one shirt for me and I played with the LED set up. I originally thought I would just have a few lights clustered in each neighborhood that would light up when the power is on.  The clusters of lights look so sloppy, so I think I will just line the lights up as grids so that the silhouettes of the neighborhoods will be visible from far away. Also, instead of the grids lighting up when there IS power, I’m going to light it up when there isn’t power, showing that when EDL can’t fulfill your needs, solar energy can.

Okay, I just noticed the EDL = LED. Coincidence? I think not.