Retro-futurism: fashion predictions from the 1930’s

The following video features predictions by top American fashion designers from the 1930s. The designs created ‘futuristic’ garments and accessories for ‘Eve’ and the ‘well-dressed man’ in the year 2000.

An amusing and very cool piece of retro-futurism. Some of the forecasts, like climate control and mobile phones, are very accurate. CuteCircuit has designed a dress called Mystique that changes shape and length during the course of an evening. It grows longer as the evening progresses (though some may want to program it to do the opposite!)

Ooh… Swoosh!

Spore, evolution and a 30,000 light year view.

September 4th saw the official launch of Spore, a multi-genre “massively single-player online game”. Spore is created by Maxis (now owned by EA) and designed by Will Wright (of SimCity and the Sims fame). Difficult to categorize, it has been referred to as a god game.  Players create progress their creatures through development from unicellular ‘amoeba’ to intelligent and social creatures, to interstellar exploration as a space-faring culture.

While smaller teasers and ‘component’ versions were launched over the last couple of years, the full version of the game was released on September 4 in Australia and the Nordic region. (Word on the street, however, is that the game was available in Australia as early as September 2.) September 5 was the European release date, and the same date launched Spore in Japan and South America. The game will be released tomorrow in North America and the Asia Pacific region.

The following video includes an interview with Will Wright, the game designer. The video also takes you through various stages of Spore - a game/journey/experience that allows the player to control the evolution of a species from its beginnings as a single-cell organism. By selecting from a nearly infinite array of character mutations, the player effectively guides the evolution of their creation. Take a look:

The ability to customize and re-design characters, share assets with other users and explore lateral aspects of the open-ended platform positions Spore at the leading-edge of gaming, social networking and digital culture convergence. Flexibility in self-expression and digital communication, a beautiful, innovative and accessible user-experience and the potential for ubiquity with a lateral, open-ended platform structure are good indicators that the Spore franchise will be a phenomenal hit. (It’s educational too, mom!)

Note: Spore’s procedurally-generated music, which evolves as you your character does, was designed by Brian Eno.

Join us at UltraFuture Expo and the Asia Game Show to explore the future of digital culture and virtual communities with such thought-leaders and innovators as Taehoon Kim, creator of Nurien.

A Virtual World with Hong Kong Stars

 August 21, 2008
For Immediate Release

UltraFuture Expo the Asia Game Show and Nurien
Hong Kong: Nurien, the widely anticipated next-generation virtual world, is looking for one male and one female Hong Kong Star to step, sing or dance, into the future.

Trendy, visually stunning and branded as the evolution of social networking, Nurien is a new ’superreal’ virtual world. The look, feel and user experience in Nurien are far superior to SecondLife, the pioneering virtual world that received global attention and interest just a year or two ago. Nurien is more beautiful, more life-like and has more engaging activities. In short, Nurien creates a deep sense of affinity and connection with its community of users.

“The Nurien virtual world is a new space for social interaction,” said David Harris, President of forward-looking event and media company UltraFuture. ”Users can create one-of-a-kind, life-like avatars and interact with each other in dance competitions, quiz show games, fashion shows or just by chatting. Each user gets their own ‘home’ space, where they can host a blog, music and video sharing right on their walls. You can even design, buy or sell furniture or fashionable clothes. This is indeed the future of 3D social networking and virtual lifestyles. The adoption rate amongst global youth and young adults is expected to be very high.”

Nurien launches in South Korea this September; in Hong Kong and China this October, and in the US early next year. The Hong Kong stars selected by Nurien will have beautiful look-alike avatars created by Nurien’s world-class team of animators. The fashions that the Avatars will wear has yet to be decided, but rumor has it that some high-profile brands are involved in discussions to showcase their latest styles. The HK Star Avatar’s will also have their own ‘Rooms’ in the Nurien platform, where fans can go to learn about the star, download special release songs, share stories on a blog and more. The Star’s themselves can make guest appearances from time to time, handing out virtual autographs and interacting directly with their biggest fans.Nurien will showcase the virtual world at this years UltraFuture Expo December 10-13^th, and then at the Asia Game Show, an event expecting over 500,000 gaming and online enthusiasts. Nurien and UltraFuture will invite the Hong Kong Stars to attend the events at press conferences, where they can ‘play’ with their own avatars live before fans.
For more information, contact the event organizers at:

info@ultrafutureworld.com

+852 8197 8087

Asia Game Show

UltraFuture has been invited to create a forum at the Asian Game Show. A huge event that draws over 500, 000 visitors each year, the AGS is a platform for showcasing the newest games and gaming technologies. Along with our friends at Nurien, OnGolf and other leading-edge gaming and consumer electronics companies, UltraFuture will create a forum for exploring the future of the gaming industry and emerging trends in digital lifestyles.

Asia Game Show 2007 video

BMW GINA: Soft-bodied Concept Car

BMW has announced and is showcasing a new concept car at the BMW Museum. The car’s name, GINA, is an acronym that stands for “Geometry In ‘N’ Adaptations”. The acronym reflects the cars ability to alter the form and ‘character’ of its skin in ‘n’ number of ways.

Instead of metal or fiberglass, the body of the car is made of a flexible fabric that is stretched over a movable wire-mesh frame. The fabric is made of a polyurethane-coated Lycra. Prioritizing context and creativity over dogma, GINA challenges our notions of what automotive aesthetics and structures can and should be. The new body material results in lower total vehicular mass, improved fuel efficiency and production that requires less total energy inputs (less mining, metal refining, etc.)

Additionally, the skin material offers BMW designers, engineers and car owners new opportunities for individual expression. With simple mechanics, the shape of the car can be altered to add, for example, a rear spoiler or fins. Taking a cue from Philips, BMW could explore LED lighting embedded into the skin of the car. Car owners could personalize the colors and patterns of their cars exterior using energy efficient LED lighting. Video, text messages and photographs could replace the custom paint jobs and decals of the past.

Certainly the concept raises many questions. What about security (from theft) and safety (in collisions)? These question will certainly be pursued by BMW engineers and their partners. With such an inspiring degree of courages, vision and creativity I believe they are up to the challenge.

(Thanks to Callan Anderson for the tip!)

Philips SKIN and the Future of Emotional Communication

Philips has developed new emotion sensitive apparel, called SKIN. I blogged about some older products from Philips in the Philips Lumalive post. The newest fabrics and designs are very cool and very UltraFuture. They actually adjust color and form, meaning that you can communicate your moods via your clothes. Design Probe is an in-house far-future research program that considers what lifestyles might be like in 2020.The SKIN probe project is part of the program and challenges the notion that our lives are automatically better because they are more digital. It looks at more ‘analog’ phenomena like emotional sensing, exploring technologies that are ’sensitive’ rather than ‘intelligent’. Two outfits have been developed as part of SKIN to identify a new way of communicating with those around us by using garments as proxies to convey deep feelings that are difficult to express in words. The Bubelle - Blush Dress comprises two layers, the inner layer of which is equipped with sensors that respond to changes in the wearer’s emotions and projects them onto the outer textile. The body suit Frisson has LEDs that illuminate according to the wearer’s state of excitement. Both measure skin signals and change light emission through biometric sensing technology. (from design.philips and trendhunter)

Visual Buildings

Hong Kong based James Law Cybertecuture International designs on the leading edge of architecture, outdoor media, and lifestyle technology. James joined us last December for the UltraFuture Expo in Hong Kong to present his work and philosophy along with a stunning exhibit of a current project in Dubai .

The Visual Building is just one of the firms many innovative and decidedly “UltraFuture” designs.

“The Visual Building is a new piece of Cybertecture that deals with the changing nature of buildings in the city. This mix commercial/retail building comprises of an intelligent skin that allows for it to change like a information lantern creating Art in the City, Information in the City, or Nature in the City.” (www.jameslawcybertecture.com)

James Law, Chief Cybertect and Chairman of James Law Cybertecture is a member of the UltraFutureWorld advisory board. James’ bio can be viewed at www.ultrafutureworld.com/Home/advisors.html

Philips Lumalive

Philips showcased its Philips Lumalive line of clothing in San Francisco recently. The show featured LED (light emitting diode) clothing, LED video jackets, coats, boots and even LED bras. UltraFuture:Style, our premium lifestyle event that will have a sneak preview at December 10-13 UltraFuture Expo, will feature intelligent and interactive garments in a high-profile runway show and in exhibits. The show, curated by CuteCircuit, will be a preview of the premiere pan-Asian platform for showcasing the future of lifestyle and fashion. Philips should join us!!

“Philips Lumalive is a new medium to convey emotions and messages,” according to the company. “It creates a positive spirit and boosts your energy level. We use colorful dynamic animations on textile products like garments, to make an unexpected striking appearance.”

Tufts Biomimetic Devices Laboratory

A New Interdisciplinary Laboratory for Neuromechanics and Robotics.

About the Lab: The Tufts Biomimetic Devices Laboratory (BDL) is a University facility equipped for research and teaching in neuromechanics and robotics. Work in this laboratory specializes in using non-traditional animal models to develop new approaches to robot control and design. A key feature of the approach is that our machines are designed using biological principles rather than simply mimicking their performance. Click on the read more link below to learn more about the laboratory.

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Design and the Elastic Mind

 

image via Core77.com

Design and the Elastic Mind
February 24–May 12, 2008

The Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53 Street
New York, NY 10019-5497

For more information, visit the MoMA website

There have been a number of posts about this exhibit and while I have yet to visit the content is certainly relevant to UltraFutureWorld community. This information was borrowed from the Buckminister Fuller Institute.

In the past few decades, individuals have experienced dramatic changes in some of the most established dimensions of human life: time, space, matter, and individuality. Working across several time zones, traveling with relative ease between satellite maps and nanoscale images, gleefully drowning in information, acting fast in order to preserve some slow downtime, people cope daily with dozens of changes in scale. Minds adapt and acquire enough elasticity to be able to synthesize such abundance. One of design’s most fundamental tasks is to stand between revolutions and life, and to help people deal with change. Designers have coped with these displacements by contributing thoughtful concepts that can provide guidance and ease as science and technology evolve. Several of them - the Mosaic graphic user’s interface for the Internet, for instance - have truly changed the world. Design and the Elastic Mind is a survey of the latest developments in the field. It focuses on designers’ ability to grasp momentous changes in technology, science, and social mores, changes that will demand or reflect major adjustments in human behavior, and convert them into objects and systems that people understand and use.

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