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Wearable technologies create a tactile interface with the body of the user, providing a new model
for architecture in which the surface between the subject and the object is almost seamless and
sensory, As Valentina Croci explores, they also call on us to reconsider a more interdisciplinary mode
of designing that accommodates a dynamic social dialogue between highly portable small-scale
devices, their remote networks and the physical environment.
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i fechas in sar exes,Wearable technologies are cigital or electronic artefacts
that work in close contact with the body of the user. Often
they are related to technological instruments that
reproduce images or music, or Bluetooth technologies for
Cellular and wireless connection. They represent a
transposition of the functions of mobile telephones into
‘objects that we wear, rather than carry in a bag or pocket
as patt of a single device. All the same, the primary
Aitference between wearable technologies and portable
vices such as cellular phones isthe type of interaction
between the subject and the abject being worn.
Wearable technologies tend to distribute operable
functions to various parts of the body, connecting
activation with performance. In this way a recipracal
relationship is created between the object and the body to
the point that, on the one hand, the bady becomes a
component in the functioning of the device (that is,
activating processes through movement or the variation in
body temperature or heartbeat), and on the other the
‘object influences the sensorial anc gercentive channels of
the user, creating a level of heightened (augmented)
‘awareness, They ate integrated in a discreet manner within
the gestures ofthe user, transforming his or her methods
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of interacting with space and other individuals. As a result of this
potential, we are now witnessing an increased jevel of experimentation
‘aimed at investigating new possibilities of perception of the body:
prosthetic and the new dynamics ofthe user within built space.
Wearable technalogies are arificial prostheses for the body,
However, thay are not substitutive, nor do they compensate for the
‘malfunctioning of a sick or otherwise disabled body on the contrary,
they intensify the senses and perception of the natural body or the
subject's ability to interact with the exterior environment, Similar to
‘common computer and digital technologies, wearable technologies
allow the subject to recontextualise his or her position, even in
antipadal conditions, inan instantaneous and non-corporeal way,
broadening the spatial confines of his or her actions, The subject thus
‘acquires ‘Uifuse body’, a varied presence in the infrastructures of
inhabited space and flows of information — from the space of the body
to that of the urban environment, from direct social relations to Jone
distance communicetion.
Unlike traditional portable technologies, interaction with the device
does not take place through graphic interfaces (the logic of the menus
fr icon on a screen), but through tactile and direct contact with the
instruments located on the body. This implies the simultaneous design
of new, tactile interfaces (hand-neld and manipulable), and the
dynamics of Interaction between the subject and the technological