Wearable Objects And Curative Things

"Explores wearable objects and health, with particular emphasis on how artists and designers respond to them. Themes include care and cure; the commoditization of health; and the complex interactions between bodies and objects. Brings into dialogue the fields of fashion studies, art and design practice, and medical and health humanities"--

This book explores the intersections between wearable objects and human health, with particular emphasis on how artists and designers are creatively responding to and rethinking these relations. Addressing a rich range of wearable artefacts, from mobility aids and prosthetics to clothing and accessories to digital health tracking devices, its themes include care and cure; wellness culture and the commoditization of health; and the complex interactions between (human) bodies and (non-human) objects. With a theoretical framework inspired by the work of materialist thinkers including Sherry Turkle, Bruno Latour and Jane Bennett, and bringing the disciplinary fields of fashion studies, art and design practice, and medical and health humanities into dialogue for the first time, this volume draws attention to the complex agencies entangled in the things we wear, and situates fashion and art in relation to broader cultural and historical contexts of health, illness and disability.

A fresh look at how literary and visual portraiture in the Romantic era embodied a newly commercial culture

In a culture preoccupied with newness and a fashion system largely predicated upon it, what is the significance of worn clothes and why do they have the power to affect us so deeply? How are relationships to clothing produced and maintained through the embodied practices of wearing, maintenance and repair? Through a focus upon a single garment, the shoe, this book calls on readers to reconsider the value of the marks of wear at a time when fast fashion reigns supreme and interest in damaged, or worn, garments quietly increases. Originating in an experimental practice-based methodology which placed wearing at its center, this book presents the act of wearing as a tool for developing knowledge, of 'being in' or 'being with', rather than observing from the outside. Bringing together anthropological and psychoanalytic theory with practices of handmaking, wearing, and photography, this book asks what is the embodied experience of wearing and the affect of the worn? Beautifully illustrated in full color throughout, Worn is the first book to focus exclusively on the significance of imperfect garments as important aspects of our material world and culture.

Autobiographical essays, framed by two interpretive essays by the editor, describe the power of an object to evoke emotion and provoke thought: reflections on a cello, a laptop computer, a 1964 Ford Falcon, an apple, a mummy in a museum, and other "things-to-think-with." For Sherry Turkle, "We think with the objects we love; we love the objects we think with." In Evocative Objects, Turkle collects writings by scientists, humanists, artists, and designers that trace the power of everyday things. These essays reveal objects as emotional and intellectual companions that anchor memory, sustain relationships, and provoke new ideas.These days, scholars show new interest in the importance of the concrete. This volume's special contribution is its focus on everyday riches: the simplest of objects—an apple, a datebook, a laptop computer—are shown to bring philosophy down to earth. The poet contends, "No ideas but in things." The notion of evocative objects goes further: objects carry both ideas and passions. In our relations to things, thought and feeling are inseparable. Whether it's a student's beloved 1964 Ford Falcon (left behind for a station wagon and motherhood), or a cello that inspires a meditation on fatherhood, the intimate objects in this collection are used to reflect on larger themes—the role of objects in design and play, discipline and desire, history and exchange, mourning and memory, transition and passage, meditation and new vision.In the interest of enriching these connections, Turkle pairs each autobiographical essay with a text from philosophy, history, literature, or theory, creating juxtapositions at once playful and profound. So we have Howard Gardner's keyboards and Lev Vygotsky's hobbyhorses; William Mitchell's Melbourne train and Roland Barthes' pleasures of text; Joseph Cevetello's glucometer and Donna Haraway's cyborgs. Each essay is framed by images that are themselves evocative. Essays by Turkle begin and end the collection, inviting us to look more closely at the everyday objects of our lives, the familiar objects that drive our routines, hold our affections, and open out our world in unexpected ways.

Illustrated with 200 stunning photographs and encompassing objects from furniture and ceramics to jewelry and metal, this definitive work from Jo Lauria and Steve Fenton showcases some of the greatest pieces of American crafts of the last two centuries. Potter Craft

"Books that explain and analyse the nature, production and consumption of fashion are very fashionable at present. Fashion is explained in terms of the body, or fetish, or gender or culture. Slightly less fashionable, it seems, are introductory books on the theories of fashion. All explanations and analyses of fashion presupposed at least one theory (of gender, or class, for example) and all apply some theory to the material they cover, but few take the time to explain those theories. This introduction to fashion theory surveys and contextualises the ways in which a wide range of disciplines (including sociology, cultural studies, anthropology, fashion history, gender studies and cultural history) have used different theoretical approaches to explain, and sometimes to explain away, the astonishing variety, complexity and beauty of fashion. Themes covered include individual, social and gender identity, clothes and the body, the erotic, consumption and communication. This introduction looks at some of the most influential and important theories on fashion bringing to light the presuppositions involved in the things we think and say about fashion."--