opacity without restricting movement. Yet clothing is part of a fringe
awareness in most of our daily activities (I am obviously not addressing
fashion aspects of clothing here) (Ihde 1990: 110).
Assuming that what Ihde here terms ‘fashion aspects’ refers to those aspects concern- ing appearance, aesthetics, and expression rather than functionality, this remark clari- fies why techno-fashion is an ambiguous and complex phenomenon when it comes to transparency within embodiment relations. On the one hand, techno-fashion is often about functionality: it helps to track and show data about the environment or wearer’s body, assists or protects the wearer in specific activities or circumstances, enhances
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perceptual capacities, functions as a communication device, et cetera. On the other hand, techno-fashion cannot be isolated from the “fashion aspects” of clothing (ibid.). Techno-fashion such as Wipprecht’s notably distinguishes itself from ordinary clothing by attracting attention to itself and providing the wearer with a whole new look or form of personal expression [figure 31, 32].
Ihde’s discussion of embodiment relations does not further address the “fashion as- pects” of technology, nor take into account that some of the technologies he describes are worn rather than just used and that there is a fundamental difference between the two. When mentioning eyeglasses as an example of a technological artifact that typi- cally involves embodiment relations, he does not make explicit that eyeglasses are not only instruments to see through, but visible fashion statements as well. A notion of em- bodiment relations that overlooks the social role of dress thus fails to acknowledge that wearable technological artifacts involve technological mediation for the sake of bodily adornment and self-fashioning, more than functionality. Their model, material, shape, style, and color are inextricably connected to the dynamics of fashion and, hence, to how we express ourselves and communicate with each other through what we wear. The fact that model Heleker describes her embodied experiences of the ‘Spider Dress 2.0’ in terms of increased confidence, a stronger posture, “a boost for the ego,” and “a fashion statement of power” (Interview WH 2017), signals that techno-fashion medi- ates much more than just bodily perception. Except for technological mediation, the embodiment relations at stake in wearing technology involve processes of adornment, self-expression and social interaction as well.
When a user embodies technology, this implies the intentional and one-directional in- corporation of a tool, instrument, or device (e.g., a hammer, glasses, or a telescope). The intentional use of technology, in other words, suggests that the artifact is primar- ily perceived as an instrument that serves to aid, transform, enable or extend bodily perception. The embodiment relations that arise when technology is worn, however, are multidirectional and not necessarily intentional. This wearable type of embodiment relations can be schematized as follows:
(Wearer – techno-fashion) world
As this alternative model visualizes, wearing technology involves embodiment relations that do not just affect the wearers’ bodily perception of the world but also mediate how they perceive themselves herself and are perceived by the world around them. Ihde’s
schematized view of embodiment relations helps to explain how techno-fashion medi- ates the embodied experience of the wearer, but it overlooks the fact that wearing tech- nology transforms how the outside world perceives the wearer, as well. He thereby con- tradicts his own argument that “embodiment is both actional-perceptual and culturally endowed” and fails to capture “the double sense of sensory and social dimensions of embodiment” (Ihde 2003: 13-14).
My alternative schema for embodiment relations attempts to solve this issue by illumi- nating how the technological mediations evoked by techno-fashion work in multiple di- rections: techno-fashion mediates how the wearer perceives her body and/in the world and, vice versa, how the world perceives the wearer. The motile, actional embodiment of techno-fashion thus always has to be understood in relation to “the social cultural experience of being seen by another and also experienced by oneself” (ibid.: 14). In the specific case of techno-fashion, technological artifacts become incorporated into the socio-cultural and material practices of dressing (Entwistle 2015). It is in the encounter between embodied and social-cultural experience that the difference between using and wearing technology is revealed.
Conclusion
The main purpose of this chapter was to explore how techno-fashion transforms and mediates embodied experiences, taking into consideration that it is worn on and by the body. Using Anouk Wipprecht’s ‘Spider Dress 1.0’ and ‘2.0’ as a case study, I focused on the bodily-sensory experiences evoked by techno-fashion and further developed the phenomenological approach to fashion by extending it to the realm of techno-fash- ion. In addition, I examined the different ways in which techno-fashion relates to the wearer’s body by bringing a model’s wearing experiences of the ‘Spider Dress 2.0’ into dialogue with phenomenological and post-phenomenological theory.
Techno-fashion, firstly, has the capacity to transform the wearer’s embodied being-in- the-world actively. As materials that “we hang at the margins of our body,” garments “enjoy a close proximity to the flesh, outlining, emphasizing, obscuring or extending the body” (Entwistle 2003: 138). The phenomenological insights of Merleau-Ponty help to understand and emphasize that the already deeply embodied nature of cloth- ing becomes even more present with the advent of techno-fashion. Widening the span and perceptual range of the wearer’s body, the ‘Spider Dress 2.0’ turned out to trans- form the wearer’s motility and spatial awareness, as well as to empower the wearer to
assume a strong and confident demeanor (Interview WH 2017). Moreover, phenome- nology provided insight into the how the integration of technology and fashion may “transform the human experience more than technology alone could ever do” (Quinn 2013b: 436). Techno-fashion allows the wearer to become more aware of the things happening inside, or in the direct vicinity of, the body. Extending the spatiality of the body, ‘Spider Dress 2.0’ outlines, emphasizes, and extends physical and personal space; and stimulates renewed, enriched and intensified connections between fash- ion and the body.
Secondly, I outlined the ways in which a postphenomenological approach to techno-fashion can help to bring studies of technology into the field of fashion stud- ies. I addressed how techno-fashion relates to the wearer’s body and mediates bodily- sensory experience. The postphenomenological approach to clothing as a technolo- gy, as well as its notion of embodiment relations contributes to a better understand- ing of how techno-fashion can become incorporated into the sensing system of the wearer. When technology is worn rather than used, however, such embodiment rela- tions become inevitably connected to the socio-cultural role that fashion and clothing performs. The benefits and constraints of techno-fashion as an extension or medi- ation of perception, thus relate to its embodied and socially embedded dimensions (DePreester 2010: 343-344). Addressing how techno-fashion affects the wearer bodi- ly-sensory experience of the world and vice versa is vital to understanding its impact, current shortcomings, and potential. To both developers and potential consumers of techno-fashion, attention to this balance is vital in determining the added value or define the shortcomings of wearing, instead of just using, technology. When technol- ogies are integrated into garments, this will have radical consequences for the way space and body are perceived, experienced and used.
Finally, postphenomenological reflections on embodiment relations and the issue of transparency showed to be of value to the extent that they help to emphasize the var- iability and context-dependency of human-technology relations (Rosenberger and Verbeek 2015: 15-16; also see Ihde 1990: 80, 98). Postphenomenology provides the the- oretical tools to study the embodied dimensions of techno-fashion and to assess if and how a specific design strikes a balance between transformation and transparency. For techno-fashion to be embodied in ways that are both useful and interesting for the wearer it has to be designed on, and in harmony with, the body. In addition, I reflected on the postphenomenological notion of embodiment relations to assess its value for the study of techno-fashion.
Embodiment relations occur between the ‘Spider Dress 2.0’ and the wearer to the ex- tent that this particular design can be experienced as really being a part the wearer’s body (Heleker 2015b). However, I argued, Ihde’s discussion of embodiment does not take into account the multidirectional and socially embedded types of technological embodiment that techno-fashion enables. Proposing an alternative model, I demon- strated that wearing technology involves distinct embodiment relations because it not only mediates how the wearer experiences the world, but also transforms how the world perceives the wearer. Since wearing technology involves both the embodied and socio-cultural practice of dressing, it can be concluded, its embodiment relations are significantly different from those involved in using technology.