Biomimetic Wearable Computers

Biomimetic Wearable Computers

Biomimetic Wearable Computers

Due to Covid19 we have seen a new obsession of monitoring our personal body health. We have flocked to technology as a way to surveil ourselves and others. This self surveillance provides comfort to our minds. We are self surveilling through wearable devices.

Now we merge humans and computers by using wearable technology. But we are merging wrong. Today’s wearable computers look like gadgets imagined in a Star Trek movie or an Arthur C. Clark novel. They look like computers, feel like computers, and act like computers.

Throughout human history we have evolved by looking to nature for solutions to our human problems. When conquering flight, humans took the hint from birds. The first submarines were designed in the shape of whales. But for the past 100 years, humans have looked to the genre of Science Fiction for inspiration when building new computer technologies. This is an unprecedented convergence crisis. Our human body has evolved for millions of years rooted in nature, while computers have evolved for a mere few hundred years, rooted in Sci-Fi.

Nature has much to teach us about how we can efficiently process vast amounts of sensory information in an analog fashion, which is fundamentally different than conventional digital computation. To successfully blend man and machine, we must build wearable computers that emulate the models, systems, and elements of nature. Biomimetic wearable computers create a design solution that works in solidarity with our planet and our people. Biomimetic wearable computers create an emotional connection between man and machine, offering the comfort and control that we are missing in everyday wearable devices.

I am pioneering a new discipline of wearable computers, called Biomimetic Wearable Computers, that imitate nature in form and function. These biomimetic wearable computers combine smart textiles, advanced computer sensors, and microprocessors to interface humans and computers by leveraging our biological input and output methods that have developed over millions of years in nature’s lab.

Parasite
Parasite is a commentary on our relationship with technology and our increasing parallel existence with cyborgs. Technology has been a parasite for many years, feeding off of human actions and emotions, instigating behavior both provoking and addicting. This piece exaggerates the parasitic aspects of technology by making them visible. Parasite is a cybernetic enhanced spine in which the materiality of the copper spine creates a galvanic skin sensor that responds to the salt in human sweat. As the user sweats more, the spine pulses with light forming a new connection between humans and computers. This wearable computer allows the sweat of the user to be visualized and documented.

Pollution Cloud
This wearable Pollution Cloud reacts and responds to pollution data in real time, augmenting the human experience by visualizing toxic pollution levels in the air. The cloud changes colors corresponding to live pollution levels. Shades of blue indicate safe air quality levels while shades of red indicate dangerous air quality levels. The cloud influences human behavior, as humans begin to congregate around cleaner air, creating new communities and tribes.

Armor Amore
Armor Amore is an external ribcage that both protects and shares your heart. Armor Amore is made of bronze, referencing ancient protective armor. Seven rose quartz stones are set into the ribcage, referencing the seven chakras, or energy centers. The rose quartz stones pulse with the wearer’s heartbeat, illuminating the heart rhythms of the wearer, all the while allowing the wearer to feel safe and protected.

These wearable computers are extensions of our bodies natural forms and processes. They are an emotionally sustainable alternative to the cyborg like devices that we see today for self monitoring. Self surveillance is increasing rapidly due to Covid-19 and it is becoming the new norm. Biomimetic computers are an extension of the human body, as apposed to making the body feel like a host for its technology. Through Biomimetic Wearable Computers we can surveil our bodies without feeling trapped by technology.

Individual Videos:
Parasite - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_2L14n_JBU

Pollution Cloud - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYilDdhEMgU

Amor Amore - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BZNVDQeXvs

This series of biomimetic wearable computers are made of copper, brass and bronze. Each wearable uses various sensors and a microcontroller to monitor and record the wearers biometric data.

https://www.indiependent.co.uk/meet-kate-reed-the-22-year-old-designer-creating-biomimetic-wearable-computers/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvaKLYU8E3c

https://katereed.art/

Kate Reed is building wearable technology leveraging principles of nature to connect humans and computers. Kate Reed is pioneering the discipline of Biomimetic Wearable Computers. As the first graduate of the MIT-backed NuVu Studio, Kate has designed, engineered and built countless wearable computers. Her designs and inventions have been featured at the White House, Boston and New York Fashion Week, Museum of Design Atlanta, the Hackaday Superconference, MIT Museum, and the Boston Children’s Museum.

Kate Reed - Designer

Boston, Massachusetts