Collection of 3 data-responsive outfits, based on conducted interviews with Tyler, Chloe and Clelia on their personal identity.
“Identity as Data” is an exploration towards translating personal identity into fully personalised garments. Can we use human identity as a type of data? This project researched the intersection of data viz, textile design, fashion design, creative coding and social science. It became our first approach towards user-generative fashion and is still exemplary for our work today.
“This project was a result of my interest in visualising human identity. Within my research I was most inspired by Llewellyn Negrin her book, Appearance and Identity. Here she claims that in premodern societies, modifications and adornments of the body were governed by traditional, ritualised meanings, although the body in modernity is more frequently treated as an expression of an individual’s identity.
Expressing your identity through fashion, though, becomes quite an ambiguous practice when the garments which we use to achieve this are stripped of their original social meaning; treated as “empty” ciphers, merely used to achieve a look rather than to convey a message. We challenged this idea by investigating whether these garments could bear a ‘projection’ of meaning, and if so how this projection could be expressive of one’s identity. Our goal here was to approach fashion as a generative system.
In today’s world, with the use of data, it’s possible to get to know our audiences and use this to initiate more engaging experiences by personalising the objects we design for our bodies and homes. With Cypherloom I wanted to envision a new method of communication that can be integrated into the product design process, allowing users to be more involved in designing the products they collect.
The conundrum throughout my enquiry, however, is how we could approach identity as data and visualise this data in a way that is relevant towards its content. This relates to the idea of humanising data, which Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec gave meaning to with their practice as information designers. But how can we really display something in print, that’s constantly changing?It inevitably becomes a snapshot rather than a timeless representation.
In addition, there remains a difficulty within categorising information for data visualisation, as when information is used as data, there’s an inevitable loss of information, and when all this information is kept it becomes merely an encryption as it loses its statistical significance. Whether my outcome is really to be seen as visualised data, or rather as a visual encryption of identity; perhaps a fashionable QR code, is up for debate. Which I will leave to you.”
Written by Gianni Antonia
Textile Design & Art Direction – Gianni Antonia
Fashion Design – Eliza Hijzen
Photography – Gianni Antonia
Production – Maaike Bisschop,Floor van der Velden, Eliza Hijzen Digital Fashion – Suza Vos
Tyler Wei Prior, Chloe Corcoran, Clelia Anchisi, Stefanie Posavec and Kira Salter
This project was funded by Stichting Droom en Daad.
