Caress of the Gaze

2015

Caress of the Gaze is a 3D-printed, gaze-actuated wearable. The project was made with the support from Autodesk Pier 9 and Madworkshop.

What if our garment could recognize and respond to the gaze of the other? Caress of the Gaze is an interactive 3D-printed wearable which can detect other people’s gaze and respond accordingly with life-like behavior.

Our skin is constantly in motion. It expands, contracts and changes its shape based on various internal and external stimuli including not only temperature and moisture but also feelings such as fear, excitement and anger.

What if our clothing could behave as an artificial skin capable of changing its shape and operating as an interface with the world, defining social issues such as intimacy, gender and personal identities?

The project offers a vision of the future by exploring the possibility of a second skin fabricated using multi-material 3D printing. It engages with a series of issues.

Firstly, it demonstrates how the very latest and most advanced 3D printing technologies might contribute to the realm of fashion, by exploring the tectonic properties of the materials used with Objet500 Connex 3D printers. This technology allows the fabrication of composite materials with varying flexibilities, densities, and can combine materials in several ways with different material properties deposited in a single print run. Inspired by the flexible behavior of the skin itself, this outfit therefore exhibits different behaviors in various parts of the body ranging from stiff to soft. Secondly, it explores the potential of an actuation system, which is assembled as a form of muscle system using Shape Memory Alloy actuators (SMA) that informs the motion of the skin. Thirdly, it investigates how our clothing could interact with other people as a primary interface using computer vision technologies.

This project therefore addresses the emerging field of shape-changing structures and interactive systems that bridge the worlds of fashion, art, technology, and design. It does so in the belief that by implementing design and motion principles inspired by natural systems, we might be able to rethink the relationship between our bodies and the surrounding environment. Even though this approach is still speculative, it opens up the possibility of a radical new approach to interactive clothing.