What if every time you revealed personal information about yourself, a piece of your clothing was torn off, so that the more your share, the more you are exposed? That’s the concept behind the X.Pose bustier by Xuedi Chen and Pedro Oliveira, both students of NYU’s ’s Interactive Telecommunications Program. The flexible mesh form features reactive displays integrated within the cells that can be turned on (opaque) or off (transparent). Connect to an app via bluetooth, the displays are turned off as more data is shared, thus revealing more and more skin. This could be the fastest way to break bad habits of over sharing on the internet.
In this hyper-connected world, we freely give data in exchange for free online services, exposing ourselves to the digital world. At the same time, we are also sensitive about privacy issues and many of us are concerned about how much we share. Xuedi Chen and Pedro Oliveira wanted to explore this issue and the battle between transparency and privacy. The more time we spend online in our social networks or connected to the grid, the more we reveal information about ourselves, like location, spending habits, health, friends, mood and much more. Companies exploit this data to target ads to encourage increase spending. We freely give this data in exchange for technology in the form of maps, recommendations, social sharing and so on.
To create a physical manifestation of this sharing, Chen and Oliveira created X.Pose, and it might just be the best way to stop people from sharing too much online. First the duo created the 3D flexible mesh based on Chen’s activities and data collected over a month’s time. The form of the bustier was created by taking this data set and processed to create the pattern. Reactive displays were integrated into the holes and wired together and controlled by an Arduino via Bluetooth to the mobile phone. As the wearer spends more time online and shares more information, the reactive displays are turned off and become transparent. X.Pose becomes a physical manifestation and a reminder of how much you reveal over the internet. For some, revealing lots of information is fine, for others baring it all may be too much and leave them feeling naked in front of strangers.
[via Daily Dot]
Images ©Roy Rochlin