Last conclusions

I enjoyed shooting the video because it was something different,  unexpected. It just shows an idea using creative imagination. The concept was to illustrate a way of changing clothes, and therefore the colours of ones clothes by the change of the weather. It is clear that it isn't by touching the sun that one can change clothes, but it also pictures the correlation that could be between the two. Even if there is no end result, I feel as though I have achieved a lot because I came up with an idea and turned it inside out, it failed but i think that it gave me considerably more to think about because it challenged me to question things. I developed the idea and attempted to project it forward, to make it a reality, but in the moment that one realizes that the reality that it is creating will not provide the learning and interaction that it should, maybe the most important thing for a designer is to learn though their failures, and not all good ideas turn into good projects. And perhaps the functioning of it has the least importance because a code already exists, it does not need to be invented. I will definitely continue investigating and researching my idea, and also for personal satisfaction find a way of adapting the arduino and using it to my advantage rather then disadvantage. This has been in all ways a struggle because having one set idea narrow the option down, but it has made me more inxcited about my personal envolvement and engagement, that the most important part is my reaction and what I learn so that I can improve. Progression, rather than regression.

My very theatrical video!

Featuring Gianna Galgani
Music cresits to Jennifer Hudson, "All dressed in love"

a fact

Water destroys technology!

thoughts

Although Arduino has failed on me, I think that most importantly it has triggerd the thought that any design project should. Is has made my question the role that we are playing and that the success rate is highly dependent on the realization of how it is adaptable to the life we lead in this century.

IDEAS

I have come to the conclusion that sometimes it is not necessary to use the senses of an arduino, that for my project it has limited rather then broadend the horizons of it's potential use. As humans we have enough senses so that certain calculations are easier and quicker using just those things that make us humans. Eyes are a better calculation of overall colour, rather then photoshop. The simple fact is that if one is wearing jeans and a bright red jumper and red shoes, photoshop calculated an overall percentage of 67 % blue and 33% red, but jeans are irrelevant because they are basic, while red is the actuall colour that is important to relate to ones mood.  I have found an alternative way of making my project accessible to a variaty of people and in a less pretentious way, making it more fruitful for the outcome of the day :D

a storm of questions.

And even if it were to be in a domestic manner, does everyone have a computer with a webcam? is it healthy to start the day using technology when the environment is already bombarding us every day with it? Why is it that we allow a computer based calculation to determine our choices and make assumptions on it? If I wear a bright yellow shirt on a gray day does it have to be that I want to light up the day? or could it just be because I am meeting a friend that gave it to me for my birthday so she will be pleased if I wear it. Why is this race to make things more entertaining and fun make things soo complicated? why do we stop thinking expecting that technology does it for us?

clothes are limited.

As humans we tend to limit our ideas to the place where we live, because often that is the only reality that we know. When picturing my project on a bigger scale I was thinking about photobooths placed around London that would take a photo of your fully dressed body, the arduino through photoshop would calculate the dominant colour and associate it to the weather forcast after the person had inserted the time and place when getting dressed. It would print a short horoscope telling you how your day would be reflected by the colour  associated to the degrees of temperature, but is that a priority? is it even necessary, and I couldn't think of something more limited. School pupils wear uniforms, all kind of working people have a dressing code, tourists have a limited wardrobe, during the winter one usually has one daily coat. And in the end also colours and degrees are limited. The reality of limitations.

environment vs interaction

Is using technology always the easy and short way in making something? and even if it were easier and quicker does that mean that it is the best way to design to engage people in learning about and through their environment? what is" the" environment anyway if their are so many different types of it. I don't want to limit my design to an audience, I don't want it's nature to limit. Is everything just a race to saving time and energy, but perhaps in the end it's just about money, you have it or don't, but money is time after all. If you have an iPhone then you have a portable map and you never get lost, if you have an unlimited oyster you don't walk anymore but you take the bus even just to go around the corner, if you have a credit card you just shop online and you save time, if you a flashy camera you don't look anymore through your eyes but through a lens, if the weather forcast tells you it is going to rain than you take your umbrella and nobody gets wett anymore. Poeple listen to their ipod, chat on their phone, read, but to people actually still engage in their environment? Isn't this race for technology just ruining the environment as a network of people that used to engage? 

So why I am designing something that puts priorities in the wrong place? 

Anecdote

I must say that it is nice that Italians are not only known for pasta, pizza and swearing :) I have kind of an obsession for understanding the root of words, this might be because that was the only way that I actually started to enjoy and succeed in latin. Arduo means strenous, arduous, something severe, a better word could not be choosen, and adding -ino at the end of a word means small, so -one means big, I wonder whether it is because the technology of arduino is tiring but it is phisically small. Perfect match. Italians do have a knack for finding the perfect word for everything. But in reality the name was given after the local bar in Ivrea, North of Italy, "Bar di Re Arduino", where Massimo Banzi and David Cuartielles enjoyed their daily espressos.

a big question mark

I think that everything is about questioning, why is that I feel as though everything is becoming more limited to a certain audience? why is that technology is making design only accessible to those who are technologically equipped? without a smart phone I feel out of space, but is that the way it is supposed to be? I didn't feel that way before coming to London, then why is it that I am put in the condition where without it I am lost? What has happend to things that were easy and accessible, that people actually enjoyed? has the world just become one big social network and the old fashioned things such as writing a letter are just passè? Children do not know how to write a post card anymore, is that normal? why isn't pen and paper enough anymore? is a kindle even comperable to the beauty of a book?
are we designing as progression or regression?

everyday a personalized message

If we think of how many people are born on our same day it makes us conscious that an horoscope is hardly personal. But the one thing that can make a person an individual is the way he/she dresses or the choices involved when getting dressed. I imagine people getting dressed in the morning depending on their mood, that could have been influenced by the morning weather when opening the curtains. I would like have a moment in the day where a phrase, a picture, a word, is just for me, that is calculated for who i am that day.
Take the picture, ARDUINO calculateS the overall colour percentage, associates to weather conditions in your location and gives you your daily horoscope :)
How to tell ARDUINO what to do!@/miwohfw,irufh,jkncuyrujn.2*&^(O?????????????????????

Realizations

I do realize how many variables there are when deciding what to wear?
-personal style
-activity of the day
-mood
-weather
-circumstances
and I realize the amount of times I have said "I don't know what to wear!!!!!" I used to think how cool it would be if there were a machine that took into consideration all these elements and decided (for me) what to wear! Putting together the plot and the basic information for a video has been illuminating because, although I didn't understand why that should be before the actual testing of the arduino, it has expanded my idea. It was like writing a lab report before having done the experiment, but in this case it il like drawing out a "dream" thinking of how it could be achieved and then actually doing it! It has opened a new horizon to this project.....

Colours, sun and rain.

I was wondering to what extent does the way we dress depend on weather conditions, or to be more precise, do the colours we wear depend on it. In the morning do we look outside the window and consider what to wear? or do we decide by the weather forecast? or are some of us brave to actually go outside in their pijamas and feel it for themselves? In Germany I know for a fact that a lot of people are dependent on the thermometer places at the window. In Italy they are seasonal, all winter the same amount of clothes regardless to the temperatures! But I have noticed that in London there is no seasonal wardrobe, more like layering clothes. So do we wake up in the morning and get dressed in colours according to the amount of sun during the day? do we wear bright colours to light up the day, or do we wear dark colours to blend in with the sky? Revolving around this concept there is the idea that people are directly effected by weather conditions, for example, if it rains (which happens often enough) one does go to work in bike. So if it is gloomy and gray I won't wear my flower patterned skirt, or perhaps I will so I will put a positive twist to the day. Some people put their clothes out the night before, some people dress the same everyday, some people don't change at all. Some people just follow the fashion. So is their a correlation between weather and colours we wear? I will start investigating.