Read online Susan Elizabeth Ryan - Garments of Paradise : Wearable Discourse in the Digital Age in MOBI
9780262027441 English 0262027445 Wearable technology -- whether a Walkman in the 1970s, an LED-illuminated gown in the2000s, or Google Glass today -- makes the wearer visible in a technologically literate environment.Twenty years ago, wearable technology reflected cultural preoccupations with cyborgs and augmentedreality; today, it reflects our newer needs for mobility and connectedness. In this book, SusanElizabeth Ryan examines wearable technology as an evolving set of ideas and their contexts, alwayswith an eye on actual wearables -- on clothing, dress, and the histories and social relations theyrepresent. She proposes that wearable technologies comprise a pragmatics of enhanced communicationin a social landscape. "Garments of paradise" is a reference to wearable technology'spromise of physical and mental enhancements. Ryan defines "dress acts" -- hybrid acts ofcommunication in which the behavior of wearing is bound up with the materiality of garments anddevices -- and focuses on the use of digital technology as part of such systems of meaning. Sheconnects the ideas of dress and technology historically, in terms of major discourses of art andculture, and in terms of mass media and media culture, citing such thinkers as Giorgio Agamben,Manuel De Landa, and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. She examines the early history of wearabletechnology as it emerged in research labs; the impact of ubiquitous and affective approaches tocomputing; interaction design and the idea of wearable technology as a language of embodiedtechnology; and the influence of open source ideology. Finally, she considers the future, as wearingtechnologies becomes an increasingly naturalized aspect of our social behavior.
9780262027441 English 0262027445 Wearable technology -- whether a Walkman in the 1970s, an LED-illuminated gown in the2000s, or Google Glass today -- makes the wearer visible in a technologically literate environment.Twenty years ago, wearable technology reflected cultural preoccupations with cyborgs and augmentedreality; today, it reflects our newer needs for mobility and connectedness. In this book, SusanElizabeth Ryan examines wearable technology as an evolving set of ideas and their contexts, alwayswith an eye on actual wearables -- on clothing, dress, and the histories and social relations theyrepresent. She proposes that wearable technologies comprise a pragmatics of enhanced communicationin a social landscape. "Garments of paradise" is a reference to wearable technology'spromise of physical and mental enhancements. Ryan defines "dress acts" -- hybrid acts ofcommunication in which the behavior of wearing is bound up with the materiality of garments anddevices -- and focuses on the use of digital technology as part of such systems of meaning. Sheconnects the ideas of dress and technology historically, in terms of major discourses of art andculture, and in terms of mass media and media culture, citing such thinkers as Giorgio Agamben,Manuel De Landa, and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. She examines the early history of wearabletechnology as it emerged in research labs; the impact of ubiquitous and affective approaches tocomputing; interaction design and the idea of wearable technology as a language of embodiedtechnology; and the influence of open source ideology. Finally, she considers the future, as wearingtechnologies becomes an increasingly naturalized aspect of our social behavior.