proposal

Propose a topic for you final project. We will be discussing final projects (or papers) in class - please be prepared to succinctly describe the topic and approach you have in mind.

so, musing on the aspect of fashion and changing signals, i was thinking of how electronic media and the internet has rapidly increased the rate of change of signals of certain forms or materials.

for example, fashions stemming from written materials--news articles, ideas and creation, slang and language--ostensibly accelerate change as technology shifted from personal paper correspondance to mass media periodicals + dailies to current instantaneous online delivery and distribution of electronic-based literary information. now, instead of having to take time to clip articles, photocopy or transcribe, or set up your own press, you can now easily scan, email, duplicate, link, or publish without much cost at all. the cost is in the trend-seeking and trend-setting research, but the transistional cost of dissemination and integrated reinterpretation (primary + secondary + tertiary sources all sourced + referenced online) has all but been minimized. and not only has the cost decreased for distribution, but also for production... anyone with a computer and printer can easily download a document and print it for their own records. with publishing tools available widely, people can layout and design their own magazines or poetry or books on different kinds of paper, ink, etc. because cost has decreased for both distribution and production of the written word, public iteration has multiplied and therefore the urge to renew writable/readable signals can both increase and be fulfilled.

in an artistic vein, a similar argument can be made for music or visual art. neither of these is primarily an electronic medium, but they've been well adapted to an electronic network. in the age of the LP, the fashion of music was mostly limited to radio stations, personal familiarity with certain records, music rewiewers and journalists, and attendance to live shows. but then once cassette tapes were developed, listeners had the power to digest and reform the music. i'm guessing that the music consumer's ability to duplicate, splice, and mix tapes at will accelerated (or at least roiled) the then-normal fashion cycles of music. and now with mp3s, easily distributed through mass media means (itunes, amazon) but also easily modified and augmented with available software, music-consumers can trade, reinterpret, reference, and reinvent the status quo. public mashups and remixes can ably shift music fashions, and the on-demand access to bios, discographies, and sample tracks expand people's musical appetite and choice for change. in terms of visual art, or graphic design (maybe sculpture doesnt work too well here, but just two-dimensional fixtures), reception was limited to gallery attendance, and then print/press reproductions. now, not only can images be scanned, photographed, and distributed online, but easily modified, augmented, combined and reinterpreted, and visually referenced. the availability of information and decreased cost of creation, i would argue, overturns the fashion of visual art with increased rapidity. for example, filtered and cropped photographs were stylish until people realized how easy it was to do in photoshop; retro vector art became cool again, wielded mostly by high-tech flash and illustrator artists, but now it's been diffused through a plethora of slick websites and subsequent templates. juxtaposed balances between organic and computational art continuously renew.

of course, the quality of music or art is not the same electronically as offline (limitations of compression and resolution, as well as sensorial experiences like the smell of a painting or the heft of an LP), but the fashion of ideas can still fully develop and turn-over. the process can be seen as duplication to collaging (juxtaposing, arranging) to full remastery (mashing, editing, sampling, flavored republishing). electronic media and the internet have decreased the cost for an individual to control a trend's trajectory...

so, these examples form the motivation behind development of a process that would accelerate the fashion cycle for clothing by putting more control in the hands of the individual. right now, even with all the materials available publicly (fashion magazines, fashion online articles + blogs, fashion photography + illustration) or not so (insider information at paris/milan/toyko, industry journals, fashion show attendance), the goods available to the consumer are still limited by what is produced and manufactured and sold by clothing designers and companies. if i read (and blog about!) an article about certain silhouettes or colors or styles for clothing, i cant do anything except (a) abstract the clothing through sketches or writings, (b) wait until i can order it from a manufacturer, or (c) attempt to reconstruct using patterns, fabric, sewing machine, and all that knowledge on how to make a garment. this is akin to wanting to print an article from online, and setting up a printing press and hand-cutting paper from an paper-roll-store in order to physically reproduce it. where music and art and text have found electronic formats and ways to slice and dice the medium, clothing fashion has not yet reached that level. right now, individuals may express their taste or reinterpretation of clothing styles by clever juxtaposition (a feminine lace paired with heavy boots, a 70's scarf with cybernetic pants, wearing a man's tie as a belt), or augmentation of existing forms (iron-on letters, cut-off sleeves, adding a contrasting hem). but still, everything is still sourced by the companies, or one has to learn very specialized skills in garment fabrication. clothing-wise, we're still in the age of mix tapes and cut-and-paste collages; there's no easy infrastructure to easily modify or remix, to discover, distribute, and recreate at low cost to the individual. i would like to see if clothing fashion cycles have reached a plateau, even with our media saturation levels... fashions in news might have a weekly or even daily turnaround time; fashions in clothing can switch seasons? mid-seasons? could it possibly be any more often than that?

how might the clothing fashion cycle be reformed, accelerated, or augmented? would a personal clothing fabrication + publication system give control of the cycle's longevity and dissemination? how could this be implemented or designed? this is where things like lasercut patterns, printable textures and colors on fabric, and an electronic garment format could be discussed and developed. perhaps buying fabric materials (plain, medium weight cotton) could be as easy as ordering plain bright while letter-size medium weight paper from the office supply store.

because clothing design remains a physical, three-dimensional art, it might be harder to change or augment its cycle. architecture, the most physical and material art, might be the most difficult. how has architecture fashion budged since the mass media age? the electronic / internet age? could we ably formulate a way in which architecture ideas and constructs could be ably harnessed for more rapid reinterpretation and redistribution? it wouldnt be huge, but i'd like to touch upon the constraints imposed by physicality, and see if it truly is the main hindrance and correlation to solid, established fashion cycles. or is it not the issue of physicality, but identity and personality? we sense and perceive art of limited dimensions, but we clothe ourselves and live in physical spaces; is that intimacy also something to be considered?