This Wearable Drum Machine is as Awesome as it Sounds

In collaboration with New York musician Birdmask Ylenia Gortana has created a wearable drum machine while studying at Weissensee School of Art in Berlin.

"The Concept of soundable fashion I developed from the starting point of questioning myself if I can come up with alternative ways of presenting fashion than on a common catwalk. So I came up with the idea to combine music and fashion, which belong together in many occasions anyway, in one object.

The whole jacket is built up in different layers of electronic textiles which are sectioned a matrix of 52 squared handmade push sensors.

The sensors are connected with a laser cut copper fabric circuit on the lowest layer of the jacket. The circuit ends with two Arduino Lilypad boards which are connected to a bluetooth signal board which communicates with the computer."

Arduino Lilypad has become popular in the fashion world by being designed specifically for clothing. Pin inputs which are ordinarily used with prototyping wire are instead compatible with conductive thread. In conjunction with conductive fabrics and sewable components a broad range of interesting smart clothing can be created relatively easily and cheaply.

Ylenia’s impressive looking circuit on the rear of the jacket feeds each conductive square. Once touched a computer is instructed to play a unique sound via a Bluetooth link.

The design of the jacket itself is certainly different to the wacky e-textiles we usually come across. Its modesty invites the wearer to actually wear it. With no statement to make it normalises the thought that we could all be wearing computers in the future.
  
Source:Techmog