Artists always address the essential theme of the times, shape it, and challenge people to engage with this issue. Innovation born from this essential theme is not limited to one artist alone, the artists themselves act as catalysts, inspire people around them and influence society.
We live in an era where we not only use technology to compensate for physical function but also to try new body expansion inspired by technology itself.
We introduce two artists in this exhibition: Katia Vega, who develops beauty wearables such as Beauty Tech Nails and remote control eyelashes, and Genta Kondo, who published the design data of the robotic prosthetic arm using a 3D printer and is working on a project that will make functions and design options available all over the world.
Their exhibits that extend bodies and their talk sessions we will stimulate discourse that promotes innovation and community formation.
Katia Vega is an artist who integrates technology into beauty products, such as nail tips, false eyelashes and hair extensions that can control data. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Design in the University of California, Davis.
She has opened up a new field in the world of Wearable Computing by provocative designs that extends the horizon of expectation of human-device symbiosis.. In order to move forward traditional cosmetics to interactive ones, Beauty Technology added a new functionality to cosmetics by exploring them as skin interfaces.
Her innovation, which can be considered to be the cosmetics of the future, creates technology that is seemly indistinguishable from the human body., and indicates the possibility to make the body’s surface becomes an interactive platform.
"Beauty Technology" was awarded an Honorary Mention at the [the next idea] category of Prix Ars Electronica 2015.
As a means of body expansion, this project develops beauty goods that can control data. In addition to cosmetic goods such as the nail tips,the extension hair and the false eyelashes, this project also develops conductive makeup and trys to transform the skin itself into an interface for digital devices.
Hairware
An extension hair device for converting unconscious behaviour, such as touching your hair when thinking, into a digital device operation externally hidden. Conductive hair that is made like natural hair becomes a touch sensor that enables data control of devices such as smartphones and iPads.
Beauty Tech Nails
A nail chip type device with embedded RFID tags, magnets, or conductive polish. When people put on the nails and pretend to play a piano or perform everyday movements, the nails manipulate digital data.
Genta Kondo is a catalyst of prosthetic arms. He produces a new type of robotic prosthetic arms in terms of price , design, production process, and has created accompanying online and offline prosthetic arm communities.
In terms of cost and design, "Handiii", a 3D printed prosthetic arm,represents a new method of producing and selling for prosthetic arms. "HACKberry" brought the option for function enhancement to developers and designers all over the world through open source of design data. " Mission Arm Japan / Agency Lab." supports community building for the person with disabilities, engineers and medical personnels. His activities started as product innovation and continue to scale up to community innovation.
“HACKberry” was awarded an Honorary Mention in the Digital Communities category of Prix Ars Electronica 2016 and received a STARTS Prize Nomination in the same year.
HACKberry
A robotic prosthetic arm that can be produced by people all over the world with open source data. All technical data including 3D CAD files, software codes, circuit diagrams and bill of materials are released on the web under the Creative Commons license. Developers and designers around the world can copy, customize and improve these data for people in their local area.
Agency Lab.
Agency Lab. is platform to realize ideas born from their community exchanges. A variety of prototypes were designed to embody for personal story, such as "Tokken Totten", a toy sword that can be held in one hand, "Image hand", designed to hold a plate, which "LINK
photo: Nicolas Ferrando,Lois Lammerhuber
Ars Electronica is a cultural institute for media arts, located in Linz, Austria.The Ars Electronica is consisted of 4 departments of “Ars Electronica Festival” for art, technology and society held in every September,“Ars Electronica Center” as museum of the future, “Prix Ars Electronica” international completion for media arts and “Ars Electronica Futurelab” as R&D function. Also many Japanese creators participates in their activities.
Kyoko Kunoh is an artist and a researcher at Ars Electronica Futurelab.
She has extensively created art works in the interactive art field, and is active in a wide range of fields such as directing in the public and commercial space, the design of exhibit products and joint projects with companies and universities.
